In Pursuit of the KPS
by GraveyardQueen
Summary: Reno is kidnapped by an Anti-Shinra group. After rescuing him, his friends want to destroy the KPS once and for all. Mostly a RenoxRude story, but other couples develope. Rated M for Violence, Language, and later Lemons. Multi-chapters, multi-POV changes.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1:

It was cold in here. Rude wondered if the others had even noticed it, as they rushed down a narrow hallway. This had to have been a hospital at one time. Only a hospital could be this creepy. Everything was white, or had been, years ago. The walls now looked dingy, as if mold was growing on them. It hardly even seemed real. The surroundings were just like one of those shitty sci-fi movies that Reno always watched at home, and even though they were all the same, he was surprised every single time at the way one of them ended. Now he was living this. He was somewhere in here, somewhere in the 8 subfloors, under the ground and away from any light that was not man-made. Rude felt lucky as ever that he had on his extra dark sunglasses today. He _hated_ florescent lighting, the way it flickered, and the headaches it caused just looking at it. Was it him? Nobody else even seemed bothered-worried, but not bothered. Not even Vincent Valentine (the ex-Turk that hated so many things that he could write an entire encyclopedic collection about his peeves, including lights of every kind and color) seemed to be feeling anything at all. The five others: Cloud, Vincent, Tseng, Elena and Tifa seemed confident that they would find Reno unspoiled and everything would be fine. None of them knew him like Rude did, though. They knew the brave, arrogant, tough Reno, the shell he used to protect the scared, sensitive Reno that only Rude had ever known. Not to say that Reno was not brave or tough, and he definitely was not missing anything in the arrogance department, but he was none of these when he was alone. Friends were his strength, and without them, he was just a little boy trapped inside a world of men.

"I just know for a fact that he is on the bottom floor." Tseng noted to the group.

"And how do you know that, may I ask?" inquired Elena in that voice she had, fitted for a perfect bitch, which Elena was. Not that she was a bad person, she was just a bitch. Elena didn't give much of a good goddamn about Reno; she was here on assignment, doing her job on her day off. She would have been in a worse mood, but she was with Tseng, and that was enough to make it tolorable.

"Because it would be the biggest pain in the ass to get to. These people, if you can call them that, knew we were coming. They don't want us to find Reno. They want to lure us down to an ambush, then maybe they can try to use us for whatever they need Reno for, you know, incase he dies." Aside from his partner, Tseng was not a bad guy on purpose. He dedicated his life to his work. He had been the leader of the Turks for over 10 years, and as such, he was calloused. He always said what was on his mind, even if it was terrible, unless the person he was speaking to was his boss, Rufus Shinra, the man that was responsible for him being here. Tseng was unmarried and had no friends outside of work, due to his serious lack of a sense of humor.

"Jesus, Tseng. Could you be anymore discomforting?" Tifa asked, knowing that even though those two didn't have any _personal _feelings regarding this mission, the rest of them did. They were here doing a job, Tifa and the others who didn't even work for Shinra (aside from Rude) were here to help a friend. "This place is empty. As far as we know, we got all of them." Thinking back on that, Tifa shuddered. They certainly did. Rude even brained a few people to get some answers. It was not the kind of thing she approved of, her gentle heart would not allow it, but it had to happen. Shooting at them helped, but Rude had been cornered at the time, and the rest of the party had guns but they were busy using them. Rude had tried to reason with them, but things escalated to a point of no return.

There was a working elevator at the end of the hall, which they could all easily fit in. It took them down the last four floors, to the very bottom, eight stories underground. Once the doors opened, they found themselves looking into another hallway, only this one was as wide as three of the halls in the above floors put together, and there were doors with tiny windows in them on either side of the wall, as far as the eye could see. It was wet down here, the floor had puddles of water on it, and it smelled of mildew and something else that nobody found pleasant. It was almost like the inside of a fridge when rotting food was left inside. The eerie sounds of dripping pipes and the buzzing of the overhead lights were the only sound that could be heard for a short time. There seemed to be no lights coming from any of the rooms.

"Well, let's do it." Cloud said, breaking the awkward silence. He was always the first one to jump into a difficult task. He took the first step out of the elevator shaft, his boot making a quiet 'splish' sound on the floor. He headed down the hall, shortly followed by the rest of the rescue team. He noted to everyone not to start kicking doors open, but to save their strength and shine their flashlights through the little windows, and if there was nothing inside, do not open it. If there were still people down here, waiting to ambush them, Cloud did not want them to know their whereabouts until it was 100% necessary. So, armed with flashlights the group of six started. Three people went to each side of the hall and peered into rooms in a disorderly fashion.

"UGH!" Tifa shrieked. She stepped away from the door in front of her and covered her mouth. Of course, hearing Tifa make any notion that she was afraid made Cloud run to her. He placed a hand on her shoulder, asking her what the matter was.

"Tifa, what is it?" he asked, shaking her lightly. Her eyes were wide as she pointed a shaking hand toward the little dirty window. Cloud shrugged at the others and bracing himself for something awful, peeked into the darkness of the room.

"Oh." He sighed out slowly. Upon looking in, Cloud could not guess what happened in here. It looked as if someone dragged a freshly butchered cow in here and threw it around. There was blood everywhere, all on the walls and the floor, and more disturbingly where there was a blood splatter on the wall, there was also a dent or a crack in the foundation. Someone strong had to have been throwing something heavy around to crack the wall like that. But as much as he looked around, there was no sign of anything solid in this area. Whatever had made that mess was not in there now. Cloud looked back at the others, composing himself to calm his friends.

"It's just a bloody mess in there. Nothing else, though. Let's keep looking." He continued on down the hall, before anyone had the time to disagree. _I don't care. Let them look in there if they want, but I sure as hell am not opening that door or even getting near it again._ Cloud kept his thoughts to himself, not wanting to seem like a wimp. He knew to himself that it was perfectly human to be mentally disturbed by a blood-spattered room, but he was not about to explain that to two heartless Turks. It would be a waste of time, and by now Cloud was getting hastier in his hopes of finding Reno. The blood didn't shock or scare him by any means, but it discouraged him. Things like that made it less likely that he was going to find his friend in one piece. But it seemed that someone up there liked, no _loved_ Cloud, because after looking into three more rooms, and nearly having a heart-attack when he found nothing each time, he stumbled on exactly what he was looking for, a sign of life.

"Guys, I think I found him." Cloud called to the others, motioning for them to come to him and have a look. Inside the window, though there was not much light, there was enough to see the figure of a person, sitting slightly slumped in a chair, head down but breathing enough for it to be noticed movement. This was enough for Cloud. There was a person, a person with wild looking hair in that room and that person was alive. Cloud stepped back and planted his foot into the door.

Sadly, he should have tried the knob before he decided to dramatically kick the door in. It was not locked, and the door itself was so mildewed from the moisture on this floor, that it was rotted. The sheer force of kicking it made the door fly open, hit the wall on the inside of the room with so much force that it swung back and the overzealous blond man's foot shot through it again, getting stuck in the hole he created. Of course, this made a loud, sudden ruckus, startling the once sleeping Reno to a wide awake, upright position, fixing his eyes on a stumbling, embarrassed Cloud, who was twisting and pulling his boot out of the chasm he produced. This only made it worse and tore a bigger cavity out of the entrance, but allowed Cloud to both free and steady himself, standing up straight, ignoring the moldy, wooden anklet he now wore.

"Cloud?" Reno questioned. He had been in this place for what he was pretty sure was three days, hoping he would be rescued. He even dreamed about it. But when he saw Cloud this time, the sheer gracelessness of him making his presence…well that just didn't happen in dreams. This was real. His friend was really here to help. There was nothing like seeing a familiar face at a time like this. His eyes widened as he saw Tifa, Elena, Vincent and Tseng looming behind Cloud.

"Yo." He said, waving his hand in a singular tick kind of motion. His eyes squinted and his arm went to shield his vision as Cloud turned on the light in the room. After adjusting to the blinding light he had not previously been allowed to turn on, he saw quite another face, a face with the power to make him feel like he couldn't breathe even after years of seeing him every day, all day. It was Rude. Rude was here, his partner at work as well as the only person he has ever loved in his life. The bigger, darker man was pushing past his coworkers to get to the front.

"Rude!" Reno exclaimed as the shaded Turk made his way over to him and the wheeled office chair he sat on. Before either of them knew it, they had their arms around one another, embracing as if a hurricane were trying to pull them apart, and kissing each other like there was no one else in the room. This was not the kind of moment to give a damn if other people were standing there. Reno was alive and conscious. Plus, everyone was already aware of their relationship. They were pretty open about the fact that they were together, but very few people saw them treat each other with more affection than a hug, seeing as they weren't much for displaying themselves publically. No one in the room had ever seen them kiss before. Rude could feel all eyes on them for a moment, and then the awkwardness set in, where everyone tried to just look at something else. Apparently not Cloud, though. Rude could hear Tifa trying to get his attention under her breath, by first grunting his name once…twice, and then grunting something else that wasn't even words at all, just mixed up syllables. So it sounded like a hushed, "Cloud…Cloud! _Kuhrnekaanaa.._" Eventually Cloud composed himself and picked his jaw off of the floor, pretending to be picking at his teeth the entire time.

Finally, they pulled apart. Given a second to let it sink in, Rude noticed that Reno's lower lip was split on the left side, he had dried blood under his nose, and the inside of his mouth tasted like something died in it. Apparently they did not let him clean himself up after whatever fight he got in. Rude stepped back to get a better look at Reno, and at this cell he had been kept in. The room itself was clean, except for the mildew stains on the walls and the water on the floor. The only furniture inside was the chair Reno was sitting in, and a rusted old pie pan on the floor. Reno himself was dirty though. His hair was matted with sweat, and was no longer pulled back. He looked wild. He had a black eye, and the split lip and bloody nose Rude noticed before. He had his white shirt and Turk jacket on. The shirt was buttoned but some were missing, and the jacket was open. Both collars were pulled up, making Reno look like a criminal. The shirt itself was bloody, probably from his nose and mouth, and it was torn on the right-front, around the place where the sleeve attaches. Looking down, he could see Reno had no pants on. Just a set of boxers to cover his hairless, slightly bruised legs. He had no socks or shoes on and his toenails were very dirty. Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Rude asked.

"Reno, what happened to your pants?" The others nodded little agreements to each other, with the same exact question in their heads. Reno looked at them, and then shrugged; smiling that smile he always does when he is joking around.

"I don't know. I guess they took them from be because they thought I might try using them as a weapon. They took them along with my shoes, goggles, and my EMR (electro magnetic rod). I lost my ring and my hair-tie too. I tried to use them as a slingshot, yo." Rude felt genuinely perplexed, with a sinking feeling in the back of his mind. That didn't make any sense. Why would they take Reno's pants and socks but not his jacket? The Turk jacket that they all wore was heavy duty, with a big, heavy zipper. If pants could be used as a weapon, then surely his jacket was just as dangerous. While Reno talked to the rest of the group, the wheels spun in Rude's mind. He looked at the smaller red-haired Turk's hands. His nails were just as filthy as his feet. There was something dark under them, a deep brownish. No, nothing about this added up at all. Looking at Reno, he seemed to be acting normal, to the untrained eye. What the others didn't know was when Reno felt the most afraid, upset, humiliated or hurt, he tried to shrug it off and make light of the situation. Just like at work, whenever Reno was over-powered and lost a fight against someone out on the field, Rude knew he felt weak and embarrassed so he never beat his partner up about it or made fun. But Reno, he had a hard time coping with failure or weakness, in his own mind. Inside he was hurting and embarrassed at losing a fight, but on the outside he would act like a total goofball to draw attention away from himself and how bad it really was. He tried to make mole hills out of mountains in front of Rude, and in front of his friends, but to himself it was another story. He was brought up tough in the Slums, and he was raised to fight. Losing was considered a weakness. To Reno the people that surrounded his childhood, weakness was something that it was okay to hate a person for.

"Ugh, what the hell is that?" Tseng asked, pointing to the pan on the floor, "They don't make you go to the bathroom in that, do they?" Reno raised an eyebrow, not able to resist a short burst of laughter, which ended abruptly as red sludge came to his lips. He wiped it on the back of his sleeve.

"No. They do have bathrooms here, yo. They feed me with that. I was only allowed to go to the bathroom once. They said they didn't want to clean up after me, so I had to hold it until they felt like letting me out for a couple minutes. They made it clear that if I made any kind of mess in here that I would have to clean it up myself. And since I don't have anything to do that with, I held it."

"But it's just _your_ shit. It's not like you're cleaning up after someone else's shit. You should have just crapped in the corner and left it there. It would have spared you some intestinal damage from holding it." Cloud mentioned. Good old Cloud was always good for a medical diagnosis, but was never so good at logic.

"Yeah…that's sick, man. If you want to sleep in a room with shit, you be my guest. But I don't want to sleep with anyone's shit, not even my shit. And as far as cleaning it up, well fuck that. I hate shit. I'm not going to clean it up after anyone, not even myself. Hell, I flush the toilet when I am still sitting on it so I don't have to look down. You're gross, yo." Everyone in the room seemed to be looking at Cloud in a mild disgust, but no one else said anything.

After the long silence, Cloud casually stretched his arms, fake-yawning and stated, "Well, it seems like it's time for us to be hitting the old, dusty trail. We found what we came for, so let's get him home." Reno seemed to think that was a great idea and slowly stood, hunching and unable to balance by himself. Rude got on his boyfriend's left side, wrapped an arm around his waist with his right arm, and held Reno's arm around his neck with his left hand, forming a crutch. They started to walk, with Reno's right hand inside of his jacket, clutching his left side, between his ribcage and hip bone.

"What is it?" Vincent asked him, walking on the other side of Reno, a couple feet away, while Cloud and Tifa were in the front and Tseng and Elena brought up the rear.

"Just sore." Reno grunted. They continued to the elevator and took it up as far as it would go, to the main floor. When the doors opened wide, so did Reno's eyes. There were people, dead people strewn all around what used to be the lobby area of this building. There were bullet holes in the walls where some of the men that had held him captive were cut down in a hail of gunfire. There was a man that Reno found all too familiar, propped up against the front desk with his skull crushed in. Three others in the same fashion were sprawled on the floor a couple feet from the first. It was just a regular blood bath. Reno had seen people die before, and he had killed people before when they couldn't be subdued in any other way. He didn't like it, but he was used to death. For some reason though, this would not settle. Though he had seen death, he had _never _seen people killed because of him. He had never had someone end lives just to save his. No one had ever given such a shit before. It was truly, deeply touching, not so much from Tseng and Elena, since it was just their orders from Rufus, but from his friends. The six of these people walked into this building and took out at least 50 people, just to save him. It was enough to bring a tear to his eye, but it didn't. At least it wouldn't until no body was watching.

"Reno, take it easy." Elena declared. "You look like you just saw a ghost. This was all part of our job. You remember work, right?" she droned, very condescendingly. "Rufus told us to retrieve you by any means necessary. It didn't have to end like this for them. But they wouldn't surrender. So come Monday, that means more work for the Shinra Corp. Who else is going to clean this mess up?"

They made it out of the now shattered main glass doors, to find Cid, waiting in the driver's seat of an armored truck, parked in the handicapped spot in the front of this condemned building. Mr. Gun-hand aka Barrett who was in the passenger seat got out to open the back and help the others get inside. He noticed the state of Reno, and the blood stain that seemed to be getting bigger on the front-left side of his white shirt. Deciding to leave the lack of pants issue alone, he simply asked:

"You okay, foo?" Reno nodded, as Cloud lifted him into the truck. Once they were all inside, Barrett shut them in and returned to the passenger seat. They started moving down the road, heading home. As the truck moved, Reno started to feel more and more sick; about to throw up was more like it. The vomit pushed at the back of his mouth every time the car hit a traffic light. The slowing, stopping, going, accelerating made it slush up and down, from the deepest part of his stomach, to the top of his throat. His vision started to get fuzzy, so he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the inside of the truck, groaning. _Oh no. Please don't throw up, yo. Don't throw up in here, Reno. No, no, no, no, no. Oh shit. Shit. Damn. Hell. Damn. Damn. Shit. Son of a bitch, not in front of your friends. _He thought as he could vaguely hear Barrett and Cid arguing about directions. Cid was not an experienced driver, since his primary passion was air ships.

"Well, Goddamn it. I missed the exit!" Cid grunted, the sickening smell of his cigarettes leaking into Reno's nostrils. He was a smoker too, but only ever smoked Menthols. Cid's cigarettes smelled like he was smoking the tar off the road. It made the lurching in his stomach all the more worse.

"It's okay. Just stop at the light and turn left on the roundabout. You can take that to the exit." Barrett instructed. Cid muttered something with agreement and cussing in it, but Reno heard the word 'roundabout' and drowned everything else out.

_Oh God! Cid no, please for the love of God don't take the roundabout! Anything but the roundabout! Please, good God no. If you turn this car all the way in a 360 angle, I am just going to lose it, yo!_

The light turned green and Cid hit the accelerator. Reno could feel the truck start to turn and groaned. Tseng happened to notice it, and asked Reno if he was okay. _No! No, Goddamn it, Tseng you fucking idiot, I am not okay. Oh shit, here it comes!_

"Reno, my man?" Tseng tried again. "I said 'are you okay?' You look like you're going to-" Before he could finish his sentence, as the truck was making the long, tilting turn, Reno's stomach cut loose. Hot liquid vomit projected itself from Reno's mouth. It flew toward the only two people that insisted they sit on the left side of the truck, his two bitter co-workers Tseng and Elena. The acidy, sticky, pungent mess splattered the two of them from head to toe, and it kept going like a sickening horizontal waterfall for at least 10 of the slowest seconds of Tseng and Elena's day. Finally it was over. Reno swayed a little, and burped once. The last thing he could hear was a chuckle coming from Vincent's side of the truck, and Cid yelling something about who was going to clean that mess up, before darkness came, and Reno blacked into a sound, unintentional sleep, slumped over on the naturally soft human pillow that was Tifa's chest.

End of Chapter 1.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2:

Reno's eyes opened, after what seemed like a sleep of a lifetime. He looked around the room, without moving, knowing that if he did, it would probably hurt. He was in a bedroom, his bedroom that he and Rude shared back home. He didn't realize how much he missed his bed and his soft pillow until he was here again. It was so comfortable that he didn't want to get up. He knew he was alone in bed, but he felt eyes on him, which was an uneasy feeling, so Reno decided to move a bit. He lifted his head slightly and looked across the room, since he knew there was only a wall to his right side. Their room was well-kept and had been tidied up since three days ago. He could tell Rude had been cleaning in here, because it smelled of Carpet Fresh, and the blankets smelled like the laundry detergent. Reno was a terrible house-keeper. If it weren't for Rude, the place would smell like garbage and their bed would look like it was pulled out of a dump, since Reno liked to spill food on it during his late-night snacking binges. The window adjacent to the bed was closed, and the curtains were drawn. It must be raining. Rude hated rain, and always closed the curtains when the sun wasn't out. Rude's love for the sun could be a pain in the ass when one had a hangover.

Looking to the right, he noticed why he felt like he was being watched. Cloud had been sitting in a chair beside the nightstand, watching Reno wake up. "Good morning, Reno." Cloud didn't smile when he said this. He was serious right now, which wasn't unexpected. Cloud was oddly either clumsy and silly, or serious and statuesque, even perfect. There really wasn't an in-between area. Sometimes he hardly seemed real. Reno slowly, stiffly propped himself up, stuffing more pillows under him, and turned only slightly to look more comfortably at Cloud.

"Good morning." He replied. Reno gave himself a look over. He was clean, and his clothes had been changed. He was now wearing one of his very dorky pajama outfits. It was a silky button-up long sleeved shirt with a matching pair of baggy white pants. _Wait, what the hell? I'm wearing different clothes. How did that happen?_ He looked over at Cloud, mentally demanding an explanation.

"I cleaned you up. Whatever got you on your left side was looking really bad, Reno. You were a mess. I'm sure Rude would have been angry if I put you in bed like that." Reno flushed slightly at the thought. Cloud changed his clothes, and that struck him as terribly embarrassing. Normally being seen naked wasn't something that bothered Reno. He was comfortable with himself, but this was different. He had been unconscious, and had no control of the situation at the time. That was what bothered him, being helpless. But why be embarrassed in front of Cloud? Nothing shocked him. He was only trying to help, and he didn't want Rude to be angry. _Wait a minute. Where is Rude?_

"Wait, Cloud. Has Rude seen me like this?" Reno was worried. Rude was very protective over him, and it bothered him seeing Reno hurt. It was obvious he was a little banged up as soon as Rude saw him back at the 'hospital' but he had hoped he didn't know just how banged up he really was. Rude always asked too many questions, and Reno did not want to lie to him. Sometimes the truth hurt worse than just leaving well enough alone.

"No, only Tifa and I have been with you. The two of us cleaned you up and stopped your bleeding. He knows that you're hurt, but to keep him calm, I neglected to include any details. All I told him is that you needed some of your skin butterfly-bandaged back together. I told him you would come out of it just fine. By the way, you are not going to want to move too much or too quickly on your left side, just for a couple of days so that it can close up right. For all Rude knows, you just got a cut fighting."

"But what do _you_ know, Cloud?" Reno asked hesitantly. Cloud sighed and shook his head, running a hand through his blond hair.

"Well, I know that you got pretty messed up in there. Whatever you got cut with was sharp and hot, not typical of a simple hostage negotiation. Looking at you, Reno, I'd say you were tortured rather thoroughly. But what I also know is that I'm just your friend. I'm supposed to take care of you medically and be there for support, but beyond that, it is none of my business. I know you don't want to waste your time talking about it. Rude is going to want to see you, though. He is going to ask, you know that." Cloud stood up to exit the room, leaving Reno speechless and confused.

There was no time for it though, because Rude came in only moments later. He pulled the chair closer than it had been when Cloud was using it and took a seat. He gave Reno a quick peck on the lips before saying:

"Good morning. You're looking a lot better. How do you feel?" Rude smiled, or smirked rather. It made Reno smile too. It made him happy to know that someone was genuinely glad to see him.

"Sore. But I'm glad as hell to be home, yo." He replied.

"Well, now that the small talk is out of the way, how about you tell me what that was all about? I was worried about you. It took us three and a half days to get you out of there. What did they want?"

"Honestly, I don't really know." That answer was true. Reno, to this moment was still slightly unclear about why they needed him. He had supposed that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But seeing the dissatisfied look coming from Rude, he added. "It was something to do with someone's dead brother. The majority of them were butt-hurt about something that happened when the upper plate above Sector 7 fell. They knew that Shinra was responsible, and insisted that I was going to be able to give them answers. They knew it was me that actually made it fall. To tell you the truth, I don't know shit about any dead brother or his group, yo. I don't know this guy. I think they just got me because I'm a Turk. They hate us. This was an anti-Shinra group, man. Kind of like how Cloud and Tifa used to be. But they have a vendetta against Turks."

He tried to remember as much as he could about the situation, as much as he wanted to forget it. These people were out for revenge, and Reno could tell that by the way that they treated him. The leader told him that his brother was the previous leader of their organization, and when the plate fell, 2/3 of their people were killed, including said leader. They had some deep hateful issue with the late president Shinra, stemming back to just before he was killed by Sephiroth and passed the torch to Rufus. Apparently Rufus's father had prior knowledge of these people, who called themselves KPS. They had their ongoing little battles amongst themselves. Though everyone knew that the plate falling was initially put into play to destroy Avalance, KPS saw this as a personal attack on their people as well. They figured that Shinra was trying to kill two birds with one stone. The leader's brother, who had been named Kesht, was never recovered from the debris by KPS, and the group started to believe that Shinra got to the wreckage first, and now have Kesht held captive. KPS figured that they should take one of Shinra's own captive as well, with an eye for an eye mentality. Reno tried to explain this to Rude, hoping he would drop it since this was all Reno knew.

"That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why wouldn't they go after Rufus? I have heard of KPS, but as far as I've been told, Shinra saw them as more of a joke than a threat. The Turks don't have any answers for them. I don't think any of us have been informed about them any farther than that." Rude seemed to be in deep thought for a moment, easily distracted when work came up, but quickly shook it off, realizing that he had more pressing matters to get to. "Reno, what did they do to you in there?" he asked, as he replanted himself, sitting on the side of the bed facing his partner. He extended a hand and placed it gently on the other Turk's cheek. Reno placed his hand overtop of Rude's, interlacing their fingers as he kissed the inside of Rude's palm. With his gaze falling to Reno's neck, Rude tipped his lover's chin up turning his head slowly to the right, and again to the left. On the pale flesh of Reno's neck, painted in bruised purple, was the perfect imprint of a hand, a large strong hand. The four fingers displayed on the left side, and the thumb marked the right. Rude could almost see a man's hand close around Reno's collar, and the vision was heart-breaking. There were little scrapes beside the bruising, as if Reno had to dig his fingernails into his own skin to try pulling off the strangulating hand. Rude's thoughts wandered. _How could a person be that strong? How could he have been strong enough to leave that dark of a bruise on Reno through the collar of his shirt? More importantly, how could he have done this damage with only one hand?_

"Why did they do that to you?" Rude asked, very obviously upset by it. "I'm sure you didn't deserve that." Reno had to agree there. He didn't deserve any of it.

"Rude, they just kicked my ass bad because I didn't have any information for them. They were angry at me because they thought I was hiding shit from them to protect the R man, yo. It just escalated." Part of that was true. The initial tortures started because they knew Reno was highly trained at keeping secrets. But they were looking for answers that Reno just did not have.

"Let me see." Rude demanded.

"Okay. Let's get this over with." Reno sighed. He knew that there was no use in arguing with Rude. Rude loved him and Reno knew it. It was only natural that he worried.

Rude reached for the buttons on the front of Reno's shirt, removing them and spreading the front. A cringe went down his back. Reno's skin was in no way perfect. Scar tissue was very attracted to any Turk's skin, but this was different. This had not been just getting hurt on the job. This had been torture. Adorning Reno's torso were fresh bruises of different sizes and shapes. There were multiple little pairs of burnt puncture wounds scattered around Reno's upper body, two at a time.

"What are these little holes?" Rude asked, his index and middle finger tracing over one of the slightly swelling perforations.

"They're from the KPS's own form of EMRs. According to them, farmers use them to shock the shit out of their cattle."

Rude's mouth dropped open. "They _stab_ the cows with those?"

"Huh? No, Rude. They don't stab them. The prods aren't supposed to go into the skin. You're supposed to use them like our EMRs. Just touch them against something, and it shocks. But theirs are kind of sharp, so if they push hard enough and shock long enough, the skin burns and gets weaker, so they can just stick the electric ends under your skin and it really hurts, yo."

"God…that's sick." He replied. Reno felt bad for saying this to Rude, but he insisted on asking. And he didn't learn.

"Cloud said you got something on your left side he had to butterfly back together. How did you get that?"

Rude moved his hand over to the cut on Reno's side. It was as long as his finger and it was held shut, so he had no idea how deep it was. It looked bad, though. It was purple all around it and it looked like Reno would have been fighting a massive infection if Cloud had not taken care of it.

"Okay, don't freak out. But I got shot." Reno said slowly.

"_**WHAT**_?!" Rude yelled, jumping to his feet.

"Jesus, Rude. I said _don't_ freak out! If you're going to act like this-"

"How am I supposed to act? You got shot?! Like with a gun? And you didn't tell me?"

"Relax, Teresa." Reno joked, trying to calm Rude down, pulling his arm to get him to sit back down.

"Do _NOT_ call me Teresa!" Rude thundered. Teresa was Rude's ex-wife, and Reno only said it because that was what they all called people when they were being dramatic. Teresa was the queen of the Drama Queens. Teresa graduated with a PHD in Drama Queen-antics.

"Well, damn Reno. What else are you going to surprise me with?" Rude demanded.

"Nothing right now. You're too excited. Let's drop it for a bit, just until you calm down. Then we can talk about it again later." Reno assured Rude.

"No, wait. I'm calm. Please talk to me, Reno." Rude pleaded.

Before Rude could press on, and to Reno's tremendous relief, the door opened. Tifa poked her head inside and said that she made breakfast, and expected them downstairs. Rude helped Reno out of bed and buttoned his shirt up for him.

"Um, Rude. What are you doing? I can't go downstairs in my pajamas. You can see my nippies through this shirt." Reno complained.

"You sound like me. I didn't realize you were so old-fashioned." Rude joked, jabbing his partner playfully with his elbow.

"You're not old-fashioned, Rude. You're just old." Reno stuck out his tongue cutely.

"What? I'm only 31. That's only 9 years older than you." Rude scoffed.

"Yeah! You probably absorb my youth while I'm freakin sleeping."

Tifa opened the door again, before Rude could retort. "Breakfast, now!" She informed, ushering them out to the living room with their friends. Everyone was there, probably to come check on Reno, except for Tseng and Elena. They were both busy working. Vincent was standing with his back against the living room wall, resting one of his enormous feet just under his thigh for extra catch. While everyone else was watching the news on TV, Vincent was examining his gun. Cid was on the couch with Yuffie and Cloud, chewing on a toothpick, since Rude would not let him smoke in the house. Reno hated that rule. He always had to go outside to smoke, even in the winter when he thought he was going to freeze. Somehow he thought that this was Rude's secret plan to get him to quit. The kids were at school, and Reno had no idea where Barrett was. Red 13 was in the kitchen, chewing on something in a big bowl on the floor. Reno could smell what Tifa was making in the kitchen, and it smelled better than anything in the world, especially after spending three days of smelling sweat, mildew and blood. What he smelled now was totally different. Tifa had made steamed rice, fish fillets, pork and egg dumplings, nori and some tofu/vegetable mix. Reno could have cared less what it was, as long as it wasn't rotten. He hardly touched the stuff they gave him at the hospital. It was all just leftovers that had been sitting out all day because no one else wanted them. He took no time hesitating before sitting down and gorging himself on food and coffee black as pitch.

"Reno, slow down a little." Yuffie called from the living room. "You're going to throw up again if you keep wolfing your food down like that. And Tseng isn't here to catch it this time."

"What do you mean _wolfing_? I don't eat like that." Red 13 piped up. This drew a laugh out of Tifa. She always laughed at Red 13's jokes. Then again, she always laughed at everyone's jokes. "I'm glad to see that you're feeling better." She said, which was directed at Reno. He made a noise to acknowledge that he heard her. Yuffie was right. He did feel like he was going to throw up again, so he took a break from his food and sat back to give himself a little breathing room.

On the TV screen, the two news anchors were discussing the hospital that Reno had just come out of. They didn't mention anything about all the people found dead though. The mustached brunette man was reading out his report.

**In related news, Rufus Shinra of the new Shinra Corp. has donated $6.5 million dollars toward the renovation of the abandoned hospital over in west side. As of this morning, his own employees were seen entering the building to begin reconstruction. When asked for a statement as to why he has decided upon such a generous donation, he replied, saying that he wanted to enrich the city's economy, by first offering jobs to the many people out of work. Secondly, he plans on organizing this as a "Discount Hospital" if I may call it that, to offer free care to the local poor houses and orphanages. Now to June Kirasowa for further news.**

A thin, blond woman took over.

**Thanks Tom. I spoke with Shinra this morning about his plans and he added that…**

"Damn he is smooth." Muttered Tifa, exacting a rather disgusted look from Cloud. In fact, everyone but the two Turks seemed to be looking at her oddly. "What?" she asked. "All I'm saying is it's obviously a very good cover-up. Rufus sent his people into the hospital early this morning to clean up all of the corpses that we left. He must have done this to draw attention away from the actual matter at hand. So now he is going to make his people clean the whole hospital up and renovate it to cover for Reno. It's clever." Tifa looked flustered, so Rude stepped in.

"Reno is valuable to Rufus. He can't have anything making us or himself look bad. He doesn't care about all the money. It's no big deal to him to give it. But don't start thinking that Rufus Shinra is soft-hearted, because he isn't. He's taking the heat off himself so he can get to the bottom of who these people are that are responsible for taking Reno and why they thought he would be a benefit to them.

Reno cleared his throat. "Ummm…sitting right here, guys. You can talk _to _me instead of like I'm not here. Why don't you just drop it, now?"

"Moody." Vincent murmured. "What's wrong with you? Are you sweet on a group of terrorists?" Vincent hadn't intended to incite anything, but he was calloused. He had very little care for the feelings of others and it showed by the way that he talked to people. He was not a happy man, and therefore, he did not care if anyone was happy. He was loyal, but never particularly kind-hearted. He personally liked getting under people's skins, but all in a joking manner.

"Vincent, fuck you, yo." Reno said as he got up and went outside on the back balcony, slamming the glass door behind him.

"Jeez Vince. Did you have to go there?" Tifa asked, after an awkward silence.

"I wasn't serious. He needs to learn how to take a joke."

"No, you need to learn how to not tell so many. Especially not ones that are hurtful to other people. That's like joking about you and Dr. Hojo being best friends; even though he pumped you full of all kinds of DNA changing cells."

"Too far, Tifa. That is not even the same. They didn't pump Reno full of anything."

"How do you know that? How are you so damn sure? You don't know, Vincent! Why can't you just admit that what you said was inappropriate? That was just screwed up and wrong. I expect better from you!"

Tifa looked around the room at her friends. Every living thing in sight had both of its eyes on her slightly bleary ones. Vincent's mouth dropped open, since Tifa had gotten within inches of his face and yelled at him. That was not like her. As much as he would never admit it out loud, it was frightening. He, Vincent Valentine, for the moment was quite literally scared out of his shoes of a 22 year old woman. Tifa may have been a girl, and Vincent may have been all-powerful, as well as immortal, but he would never hurt Tifa. She was tough as nails, but no matter what she did, he would never lower himself to hitting her. That's what made it so scary. Tifa could have punched Vincent in the mouth at any second, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it, because it would have been wrong of him. He really did not want to get punched by her. Though he could not die, he could still lose teeth, and that could still hurt.

Cid cleared his throat, nudging Yuffie into looking somewhere else.

"I'm sorry Tifa. That was uncalled for." Vincent said, in his dark but dignified manner. He wanted to keep face in front of everyone by being polite to Tifa, but that wasn't why he apologized. He said he was sorry because of the way she looked at him like she was going to swing at him if he didn't. There was no doubt about it. The feeling was palpable, she was fuming angry.

Her face softened though, and her anger was gone as quickly as it came.

"Its okay, Vincent. I'm sorry, too. I overreacted. I should not have gotten mad at you. You didn't mean it. This is just a stressful situation for all of us." She finished by stroking Vincent's cheek with the side of her palm nearest to her thumb. Catching herself, and now very embarrassed she abruptly stopped and stood up straight, bringing her fingernails to her mouth, to chew them nervously.

Vincent could read people, and Tifa was like the simplest book in the world. He knew to himself that she didn't mean anything amorous by her sudden affection. She spent most of her life with children, and he had seen her give them hugs when they were sick or afraid, or if she had been too hard on them. To her, children needed to be loved as well as disciplined, and the way she showed that she cared about them was usually physical, like a pat on the back or a tussling of the hair. At that moment, she just lost her bearings, and was treating Vincent like a child she had disciplined too harshly. She was a good mother and a good person, and that was nothing to be embarrassed about. In fact, Vincent found very slight and very, very rare affection comforting. He didn't often like human contact, and if he felt he was in the mood for it, that was always in very small doses. That was a burst of refreshing air to him. Though, like every other thought and feeling he had, he would never admit it aloud.

Seeing her bothered like that struck him as humorous and a very slight grin crossed his cheeks. He knew that everyone in the room had now dropped their jaws even closer to the floor, and it just made the situation all the more entertaining. Vincent didn't care what anyone thought, but he could see out of the corner of his eye that a very livid Cloud Strife was staring daggers at him, so he decided to put the Kibosh in this thing and wrap it up quick.

"Eyes down." He told his friends, and immediately got results. Everyone but Cloud quickly found something else to do, getting up and rushing around the house toward a new chore. Vincent, not wanting to get Cloud anymore irritated and jealous than he already was decided that it was time for him to get to his daily errands. He stood and with a quick nod of the head said, "Good day, Tifa." Before heading out the front door.

Before Rude could take advantage of the opportunity to go check on Reno, the back door opened and in Reno came.

"Rude, you are never going to believe what just happened."

End of Chapter 2.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3:

"Okay, I ripped my side open when I slammed the door, and then all my cigarettes blew away in the wind. They went into our neighbor's balcony, so I tried to climb over to get them. I did it and was just about to jump back into our balcony before Mrs. Naratama came out. Her 80 year old ass now thinks I'm retarded because she tried to ask me what I was doing, and I couldn't explain. So she told me it was okay, and to have a very special day. Cloud, can you patch me up?" Reno asked, now in a better mood because of the nicotine, and the fact that Vincent was no longer in the room helped.

Cloud sighed and agreed, saying something about how Reno needed to be more careful, following him to the kitchen to assist him. Removing his now bloody pajama shirt, Reno leaned against the counter, letting Cloud play Dr. Strife, as he so loved to do for those that he cared about. The smell of his own blood brought back memories of the past few days. It had been hellish.

~*Flashback*~

He had been on his way to work, no different than any other day. He must have been knocked unconscious at some point, because there was no struggle and the next thing he knew, he woke up on the hard floor of a very unfamiliar room. He lost no time standing and backing to one corner, taking a careful look at his surroundings. The walls were white, just like the tile floor. There was a wooden table and two metal chairs in sight, and aside from that, no other furniture. He noticed an enormous mirror, taking up most of the wall to his left, and there was a door heavy door with a tiny plate of glass window in the wall farthest from him. _Where the hell…? I am definitely not at work. Am I at a police station? That mirror looks like a two-way. _Reno was incredibly skilled at noticing minor details. To his best judgment, this was not a police station, and wherever it was, this was not a real interrogation room. Only an idiot would find this believable. This room had a moldy smell to it, not clean like the police usually kept their stations. The table looked more like something that was used in cafeterias, not something a cop would even touch. No, these guys were not professionals. The lights were florescent rods, connecting to the ceiling and covered by sheets of broken glass. _Nope, they aren't cops. Cops would have fixed the lights._ Reno gave himself a quick exam. He wasn't hurt or dizzy, but did have a bit of cottonmouth. He still had his wallet, ring, chain, keys, and all of his major accessories, but his EMR was gone. _Okay, they disarmed me, but didn't search me too well. I still have all of my cash though. Not robbing me is uncommon for any unprofessional goon._

Before he could dwell on it any further, the door opened and a man in a white coat entered. He looked like a doctor, and couldn't have been more than five years older than Reno. He had short black, very greasy hair and an average build, but was wearing glasses. In his hand he held a syringe with a 3 inch needle and a metal handle. He didn't speak but was steadily making his way across the room. It was quite obvious who the needle was intended for.

"What's that, yo?" Reno asked him, not particularly expecting an answer. He tensed, ready to attack if this man decided to lunge at him with whatever that serum was in the syringe. Reno made it a point to never allow anything he was unfamiliar with to be put into him, especially nothing that came from a needle.

"It's just a little something to help you relax." He said, taking Reno's arm in a quick jerking fashion. Before he could pull the sleeve of the Turk's shirt and jacket up, Reno had already slipped his hand free. He cut to the left, slapped the needle out of the doctor's hand, caught it in his right hand, his left hand seizing the man's wrist before plunging the thin metal spear into the side of his challenger's neck, pushing the plunger down, driving the bluish fluid into his veins.

"I don't want to relax." He retorted, before taking this man to the floor with a quick uppercut to the chin and an elbow to the stomach. He fell to the floor and attempted to get up before he started stumbling around. The guy looked drunk, and finally gave up, and just lay back down on the floor. He made a groaning sound, looking up at Reno as he backed away. Reno was not a generally violent man unless he was working, but he did not like being disrespected. He detested when people automatically tried to assume power over him, or came at him without his being aware of their intentions. He fought through his entire childhood against bullies and people like that. As his skills built, he started enjoying being able to walk home at night without being mugged. Defending himself in that manner had become a second nature to them.

_Hmm…they were going to shoot me up with something so that I couldn't fight them. Why the hell did they only send one guy? These people obviously don't know me very well. Or maybe they know I can fight, but they don't know where I stand in the mercy department. _

Just as quickly as Reno took out the doctor, three more men came into the room, and this time none of them were wearing doctor coats. These three were a bit bulkier than Reno was, and they were dressed in more fight-worthy clothing, loose pants and combat boots. They didn't take it slow either. The three of them rushed Reno at one time, but he had taken multiple opponents before and he could do it again. He fought them, and fought them quick. It didn't take long before each of them was unconscious. Reno wasn't sure, but he thought one of them might be dead. None of the three men had fought him with any type of specially trained fighting techniques. They threw punches and kicks blindly, like thugs, unorganized and wild. Reno was not the best hand-to-hand fighter on the planet. He preferred to use his EMR and other Turk issued weaponry, but he was good enough to overcome these three with only moderate effort.

Not leaving much time to compose himself, four more men entered, each charging at Reno in different patterns, two went for kicks, both high and low, and two went for punches. He dodged and was fighting them off well, having to use much more exertion than with the last three, but he found himself holding is own. He had landed most of his own attacks on them, and had dodged most of theirs. For a moment, it looked like he was going to beat them, until he noticed more men out of the corner of his eye. Three more entered, and each of them had some kind of a stick in their hands. They were long, metal, and had a "U" shape toward the end of them. Reno had thought they were some type of batons, until one of the men pushed a button on his and it started to make a buzzing sound. A blue ray of electricity zapped between the ends of the U. _Those are EMRs. They're weird looking, but that's what they are. _Reno momentarily forgot about the other four men he was fighting and tried focusing on the three that were armed. He had managed to attack one of them and twist the rod out of his hand, thrashing him with it, and turned on the others when the initial man was indisposed. They were tricky though. Each time he went for one, some of them would switch off, passing the rods back and forth amongst each other. It became harder and harder to dodge, because one man against six just had too much to focus on. Before he knew it, dodging was impossible, and the electric end of the rods caught him in the leg, sending him to the floor in a momentary flail of blinding pain.

These hurt at least 10x more than the EMR that Reno often used at work. He had been shocked before, but not like this. He thought that this must be what getting the electric chair feels like. It burned so deeply, and felt like every part of him was being hit by red hot nails, shot out of an industrial nail gun. There was no way any normal electric rod would hurt that bad, they had to have tweaked theirs somehow. The way this felt was just not natural. This was lightning in a stick! Once on the floor, the assault didn't stop. They continued to shock him ever time he moved to get up. He was sure that one guy even shocked him for thrashing while he was being shocked by another guy. Reno clenched every muscle he could control when he felt the offending rods touch his clothes, subconsciously trying to repel the jolts. He groaned loudly each time he was seared, but refused to cry out. Finally the shocking stopped for a split second, and Reno felt a sharp little sting in his thigh, extracting a small yelp from his mouth. He looked down to see the end of another syringe pierced into the leg of his slacks, the hammer all the way down, and the muscle relaxers quickly navigating their way through his veins. As the room began to haze over and spin, Reno reached his hand down and pulled the needle out, looking at it for only a moment before muttering to himself, "Hey…" Blackness.

His eyes opened again, and blurry vision centered in on his new surroundings. He had been moved. This room was smaller. There was no mirror on the wall, and no table. The only thing in the room was the chair that he seemed to be tied to. Reno's neck was stiff as a board, from having his head down the whole time he was out. He couldn't hear anything, but noticed that this room had a different smell to it. It was a damp scent, and he quickly figured out why. The floor had water on it. Not a lot, but enough to slip and crack your head in. The drugs he has been injected wore off rather quickly, once he had actually opened his eyes and started looking around. He was seeing and thinking more coherently. Reno tightened his wrists and pulled lightly. He was bound by plastic, and by the feel of it, he had been fastened down by zip ties. _Who are these people? They can't afford to use cuffs or rope? Zip ties? That's just stupid. Score one, Reno. _

He looked down at himself, his ankles were zipped to the legs of the chair, and his thighs were zipped to the seat. He felt one zip around his waist, attached to the back of the chair, but his arms were only tied to one another. _They are just asking for it._ Reno told himself, in his cocky way. He sighed and slowly moved his hands up the back of the chair, twisting his hip to the right as much as he could. His index finger was just out of reach of his pants pocket on the front. If only he could stretch just a little more and he would be able to get it. His arms couldn't go any farther though, unless he wanted to dislocate a shoulder. But then, he had an idea. This particular thing was always the problem when he got up out of his desk at work. The pockets of his pants were loose, and when he moved just right, his keys and all of his change would fall out. So if he could just move a little bit more…

Reno tensed and moved his toes against the floor, twisting and making the chair jump, every so slightly. He heard a reassuring jingle coming from inside of his pocket. He tried again, and felt his keys slide a little closer to the hem, just inches away from freedom where his hands were waiting eagerly. One more try. He jumped the chair as hard as he could and felt his keys tumble out into his hand. He couldn't help it as a smile crossed his lips. His hands fumbled with his key ring, until he found what he was looking for, a little red pocket knife that Rude had given him from some weird First Aid thing he had gotten in the mail. He snapped the tiny blade open and set to work, sawing at the plastic that held his wrists together in such an uncomfortable position. Each time he moved, he could feel the plastic dig into his skin. The zip ties were tight, but he had to do this to get loose.

After what seemed like forever, the plastic tie snapped free. Reno brought his arms back around to his front, rubbing the friction burns on his sore wrists, before cutting the rest of the ties loose and rising from the chair. He stumbled a bit. His legs were asleep, but walking around the room quickly made the feeling come back. Now, he was going to have a peek out the window and devise an escape plan.

Before Reno could do that, the door opened and three men stepped inside. They instantly noticed Reno was free and the man in the middle, twice as big as Loz began barking orders at the other two.

"How the fuck did he get loose?! I thought you searched him, didn't you?" he yelled.

"Sir, we-" one of his assistants started.

"Shut up! Just go get him." The man pointed toward Reno, as if his two assistants were dogs that were too stupid to find him without direction.

Reno was ready for them this time, because they didn't have electric prods. One man ran at him, while his boss yelled "Get him and search him." Reno threw off his jacket, which was making it too difficult for his cramped shoulders to properly move. The man caught him easily, slamming his back into the wall. He went to throw a punch, but Reno ducked and he smashed his fist into the wall, letting out a howl of pain. Reno darted to the side, but the other man caught his sleeve and tore the hem out of the shoulder. A few buttons came loose and scattered across the room as well. The rest of it came off as he sidestepped around the smaller of the men and caught his fist with the remaining fabric twisting his arm behind him. Reno used this moment of his vulnerability to kick the man in the back, releasing him as he pummeled into his two associates.

The leader became infuriated, his muscular arm shoving his useless subordinates to the side.

"Stand over there, I'll fucking handle this. I swear to God you're both worthless! Remind me to kill your asses dead later!" He was red in the face as he drew a handgun from his belt. Reno stopped dead in his tracks, still in defensive stance, but not moving an inch. The man pointed it directly at him before demanding answers.

"How did you get out?!" spittle flying from his mouth as he shouted at the smaller man in front of him. Reno had to guess that this guy was high-strung and possibly on steroids, because he didn't even give Reno an iota of a second before snapping yet another order.

"Take your pants off, Turk!"

Reno's eyes grew to the diameter of a golf ball. Had he heard this guy right?

"Excuse me?" he said, cocking an eyebrow, now very confused and slightly afraid. _Oh my God! I think this freak is coming onto me! What am I going to do? I can't take him. Hitting him would be like punching into a brick wall. He has to be 300lbs of pure muscle. Oh shit. Shit-fuck. Ass. Damn. Shit. Hell. He just yelled at me to take off my pants. That's prison-talk. I'm about to be the helpless victim of a prison rape._

"You heard me, drop them!" This guy could not stop yelling. What the hell was his problem? Just because he was the size of a goddamn city bus did not mean he could just make people do whatever weird shit he wanted on a whim.

"No way, man!" Reno replied. "I'm not about to get naked in front of a fuckin' pervert, yo! The only way my pants are coming off is if you come over here and fight me for them!"

The big guy chuckled for a moment, before raising his handgun and firing. The sound of the bullet ejecting filled the room with a loud _**BANG**_ before Reno even registered what happened. All in a fraction of a second, he stumbled back against the wall. His hands went involuntarily to clutch his side as blood spurted out from between his fingers. He looked down at it, feeling hazy again, like he was in a dream. Though it didn't hurt yet, Reno had never been shot before, and feeling this brand new feeling, and seeing himself bleed like he was, fear quickly overcame him. He had just been shot, and getting shot meant getting killed to his now panicked brain. He had gotten hurt so many times before, and could usually remain calm, but the adrenaline pulsing through him like a jackhammer made it impossible to be even the least bit relaxed. Shock took a violent shove into fear.

"Oh my… _GOD!_ You…fucking…_**SHOT ME!"**_ Reno screamed, for the first time since he had been captive here, he didn't know how many hours or days ago. He looked up at this monster of a man in both shock and anger, as his knees buckled and he slipped to the floor. He looked down at himself again, and the panic made the blood only gush out faster. Then the pain started. There it was. It burned like fire and it pulsed like something was trying to escape from it. Reno hunched over, still grasping onto his newly opened wound. He contracted every muscle in himself as the rushes of oain started to throb through him, timed with the beats of his heart. He kicked his leg out against the tile wall, holding his breath and trying to keep from embarrassing himself by screaming again, but it only made it hurt worse.

"_**GODDAMN IT!"**_ He rolled slightly, and then steadied himself as he heard the leader speak again to his dogs.

"You can leave now. Your services are no longer needed. I can take it from here." He said, with a thrill in his voice.

"But sir, are you-" the taller of the two started.

"I said _**OUT!"**_ he bellowed, cutting off whatever it was the man was going to suggest. They both quickly hurried out of the room, closing the door behind them.

"Now, where were we?" he asked, stepping closer to the bloody Turk that lay on the floor in front of him. This had only been the second time he heard this man speak without yelling. It was a relief because his head started to hurt. The man kneeled down and pulled Reno to his feet, where he stood, very unsteady.

"I remember now." He stated, as he lifted his victim by the bloody waistband of his pants, effortlessly tossing him across the room and into the wall. He repeated this, over and over, throwing Reno around as if he were as light as a simple toy. He changed up his routine by randomly throwing both kicks and punches to the already battered Turk.

"This is what you get! You had to act like a big shot! When I tell you to do something, you fucking do it, do you understand?!" He screamed, as he pinned is prey to the ground, with an anvil of a hand pressed onto Reno's stomach, fingers digging ever so slightly into the open gunshot blast. Reno whimpered as the man dug a strong grip onto the waist of his pants and with a quick yank of his machine of an arm, tore them completely free from his legs, snapping even his leather belt in two. He threw the now shredded material away from him, making the buckle of what used to be his belt clank and skid across the floor. Reno's eyes widened once again, as he was all too awake at the moment, lying on a dirty, wet tile floor, a bloody mess, in nothing more than his plaid boxer style underwear. Could he get anymore pathetic?

"I can't have you escaping again." He growled, now getting within two inches of Reno's face. "And I am **NOT** a _**PERVERT**_!" He had been fumbling around in his pants cargo pocket as he spoke, and with this last word, he brought his fist down hard into the left side of Reno's chest. He let out another yelp as he realized what the man just did. His gaze went down again, to see yet another needle puncturing his skin all the way to the hilt, the syringe wrapped tightly in this monster's fist, pumping yet another dose of muscle relaxer into his system. He made sure Reno was still conscious as he added,

"Especially not for a piece of shit Turk, like you. Lights out, until I can think of what else to do with you."

He awoke from being unconscious yet again, sore, stiff, tired and once again, tied to a chair. It was cold now, and he realized he was sitting in this room, soaking wet in nothing more than a pair of underpants. His socks and shoes had even been taken. He didn't want to move. He didn't want to look up. Reno just wanted to look at the floor until he fell asleep again, but he could feel the presence of another person there with him, and the reality of it presented itself when a huge hand twined itself into his hair, giving it a rough yank, snapping his head back so that he had to look into the face of his predator. It did hurt, but instead of making a sound, he only drew in a sharp breath, blinking a few times before gathering his bearings.

"Hair pulling? That's it? That's your season ticket? Hair pulling, that's just great. What's next, name calling? Wedgies? Or maybe you're going to tell me I'm a doody-head and throw a dodge ball at me." Reno taunted, feeling just a slight burst of defiance.

"I'm going to get answers from you, Turk." The man stated. "I'm Koeft, the new commander of KPS. We have brought you here because you and your poor excuse for a company, Shinra, are responsible for the fall of 2/3 of our men, including my brother, the former commander, Kesht."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Reno replied. Before he could blink, Koeft already pulled out one of the electric prods Reno hated so much, flicked it on, and smashed it into his skin, sending another white, blinding electric pain through Reno's already heavily bruised skin. He left it there for 10 seconds before removing it.

"Do not speak unless you are spoken to!" He yelled again. _Goddamn, this guy is a total lunatic! What is his problem? That really fucking hurt so bad I almost peed myself._

"When you dropped the plate over the Sector 7 Slums, our organization was devastated. Nearly 100 of my people were crushed to death in the accident, including Kesht, who was never recovered by the remains of us. We have reason to believe that he is alive, and he is in captivity, held by your people, Shinra."

The rest of the few days he had been captive were a blur of questions, shocks, beatings and being switched rooms. Reno had no answer for anything Koeft asked. He had been given no information about anything to do with the KPS. He had barely even heard of KPS, and as many times as he tried to tell Koeft, it didn't help. Nobody believed him. As such, Koeft became easily irritated and trigger happy with the electric prods. By the time Reno thought up his next plan, he had gotten electrocuted so many times that the rods started getting stuck inside of his scorched flesh, forming burning bloody punctures where they touched.

Reno had no idea what time it was when he was finally untied and fed. He had been sat in the far corner of the room and while being guarded by armed men, he had a pan full of god knows what tossed on the floor in front of him. Reno hesitantly looked inside and saw what looked like crusty old noodles, spoiled shrimp, and frozen vegetables. He looked up at the man that had presented him with this gruel, eyebrow raised.

"You want me to eat that shit, yo?" he asked. The man only replied with a grunt. _All right, this is ri-goddamn-diculous. Nobody alive would eat this, but damn I am so hungry. _

Reno looked around the room and snapped his finger in the direction of the weakest looking armed man, the man that was almost his size, and just happened to be one of Koeft's personal assistants.

"Hey, you there… Princess, how about you go get me a double-quarter pounder? This is a real clever joke, but I'm not putting that crap into my mouth."

"No. That's what you get. Either eat that or go hungry." He said, in his spiteful way of speaking. Reno automatically didn't like this guy at all, from the first time he laid eyes on him.

"Okay then. But I do have to take a dump. Where's your bathroom?" The man just looked around, pretending he didn't hear a word Reno had said. _Give me the cold shoulder, will you? Well, it looks like this guy needs just a little bit of motivation._

"Fine, if you let me go to the bathroom, I will personally tell you everything that I know. It will delight the shit out of your boss. I know that for sure." He gauged the man's reaction. He seemed interested, but still said nothing. "Or, I could just shit right here." Reno said, as he went to crawl around the room, pretending to look for somewhere that looked pleasant to go to the bathroom. "You might as well go get some toilet paper for me, since-"

"All right!" he snapped. "If I take you to the bathroom, as soon as you are done, you tell me everything."

"Deal, but let me put my jacket on. I don't want your guys checking out my package or anything." Reno smiled.

"Get him up." The small guy commanded, as two of the men lifted him to his feet. He was handed his wet shirt and coat, allowed only a moment to put them on before being lead out of the room, one man on each of his sides. _It's going to work. I have to time this just right and I might be able to find my way out of here._ They lead him down the long, soggy hall, his bare feet splashing into the puddles. He could see the bathroom looming ahead. He couldn't have used it if he wanted to. Not eating or drinking anything in such a time had made it impossible to even feel like he needed to go. He would probably be constipated later. A smile crossed his face as he decided that this was it, this was his time. They had just passed a left turn a moment ago.

"Ahh, shit a spider!" he shrieked, pointing a finger toward the corner. Lucky for him, his companions were stupid, they both looked in the direction of the imaginary spider as Reno broke to the left, taking off in a full sprint down the left corridor. He knew that they were right behind him, but he was fast and springy. This place was a maze, and after a few turns, he was lost. There was a man on the loud speaker making an alarm. He said that he wanted the 6th sub-floor blocked off. So that's where he was. When he found the stairs, he was going to need to go up. He had been running around this floor for what he thought had to be at least 15 minutes, without being caught. As he went into a turn, he saw two men waiting in the corridor, their backs facing him. Down at the very end of the same hall was a door marked 'Stairs'. _Ah sweet! The stairs! Now, how the hell am I going to get past them?_ He thought to himself as he scratched the back of his head, fingers lightly brushing over his hair tie. He pulled his hand back, looking at it, the wheels in his head cranking, forming a plan. On his thumb, a thick, silver ring shone in the light. He stared at it for a moment, then cut his eyes over to the side of the hall opposite the stairs, seeing that there was one more guard on that side. Finally, an idea hit him.

He reached into his hair and pulled out the rubber band holding it back, and at the same time, stuck his thumb into his mouth, using his saliva to loosen the ring. Once that was off, he spit it into the same hand now holding the rubber band. A sly smirk crossed his cheeks as he almost laughed at himself for being so smart. He positioned the band on his thumb and index finger of his left hand, and held the ring in the center of the band with his left hand, pulling it back into a V shape. A slingshot. He had made a slingshot. He stretched it back as far as he was comfortable stretching, and took aim at the man down the hall. _I only have one shot here. If there is a such thing as God, he'll cut me some damn slack and make this work._ He waited just a moment, keeping both eyes opened, until his double vision created one image. As soon as that happened, he let go, watching the heavy steel ring soar through the air, dashing down the hall before it made contact with the guard's temple. The man made a weird kind of grunting noise before stumbling into the wall and falling on the floor.

At the sound, the two guards closest to the stairs ran across the hall to the aid of their comrade. As soon as they passed the corridor that Reno had been hiding in he took off at full speed toward the stairs. Not noticing the huge puddle ahead, he slipped, falling flat on his back and head, sliding at gail-force speed toward his destination. He slammed hard into the wall before forcing himself to his feet. Wrenching the door to the stair well open, he headed for the set heading up. His foot had barely touched the first step before he felt himself being yanked back. His back slammed against the metal door, hitting his gunshot wound on the handle, and finally understood what had happened. It was Koeft. Koeft had been waiting for him, knowing that he was going for the stairs to make his escape. Koeft lifted higher, his fist gripping the front of Reno's jacket. Reno struggled, landing kicks and scraping his toenails against Koeft's bare, sweaty torso.

Koeft lifted him as high as his arm would allow before slamming Reno down back first onto the concrete floor of the stairwell. He gave the Turk not a moment to catch his breath before pinning his legs with his own powerful, camouflage clad ones. His fist wrapped itself with grasp around his captive's neck, underneath the collars of both his shirt and jacket. Reno gasped and involuntarily brought up his hands, pulling at Koeft's forceful grip. The breath was being choked off from reaching his lungs. It hurt like hell, and he thought for a moment that his brain was going to explode inside of his skull. Instinctively he used a tactic taught to him as a kid. He clenched his back teeth, closing his mouth and leaning his head up, tightening all of the muscles in his neck, trying to gasp in just tiny breaths of air. This had been intended to make the strangulation do less damage, but it had no bearing against Koeft's grip. His vision was starting to blacken and his heart pounded in his brain. He could barely make out Koeft telling him something about how he was becoming too much of a liability before he was once again unconscious.

~*Present Time*~

Reno smiled to himself. That was when his friends had come for him. He woke up to much happier circumstances.

"Cloud, did you ever get that bullet outta me, yo?" he asked. He would have liked to have seen how big it was.

"Reno, there wasn't a bullet in you. Koeft must have been a really good shot, because he just cut you with it. The bullet went right through. That's why your wound is so long and deep. You should have known when you didn't succumb to lead poisoning. He didn't want to kill you. He just wanted it to hurt. It looks like you got knifed more than shot. It must have tore since you were moving around so much."

Reno shrugged as Cloud finished the last bandage. He had been stitched with fishing line, as well as bandaged, "Just to be safe this time" according to Cloud. Rude brought him a new shirt as soon as Cloud covered the area with gauze, to prevent bleeding through on any more clothes.

"I've got to get to work now. Where's Tifa?" Cloud asked. "She's not outside with Vincent, is she?"

"No, man. Vincent left a wile ago, where were you?" Rude noted.

Cloud shrugged, reminding Reno once again to be careful before he got his coat on and walked out of the house, Tifa following shortly behind.

"That boy needs to get his priorities together and the sooner, the better. I'm tired of seeing Tifa like that" Rude grumbled.

"Yeah, what a little Judy." Reno agreed.

End of Chapter 3.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4:

Rude's eyes opened to the morning sun. It had been four days now since Reno had been rescued, and his wounds seemed to be healing nicely. He lifted his head and peered around his sleeping boyfriend's shoulder to look at the alarm clock. It was 8:30, and they were due at work for a meeting with Rufus at 10:00. Rude smiled. He loved waking up early and having time to just relax in bed with Reno. He laid back down, wrapping his arm tighter around Reno's ribs; the smaller man's back curled against Rude's chest. Spooning was his favorite way of sleeping with Reno. He felt like it was protective, and just the feel of holding Reno was as pleasant as it could get while one of them was still asleep. Rude lifted again slightly to get a look at the sleeping Turk. Reno was in a semi-fetal position, with his legs drawn up, bent. His elbows were bent and one hand was under his pillow while the other lay balled up by his face. His mouth was slightly open, snoring softly. He was beautiful, the very meaning of the word 'perfection'. He always looked so innocent when he slept, like an angel. No one that had ever watched Reno sleep could have thought that he could bring himself to beat people up as part of his occupation.

Rude smiled, leaning down to kiss the redhead's neck, lovingly muttering "Morning, beautiful." afterward. Reno snorted, jolted once and opened his eyes.

"Huh?" he said, looking around confused, like he always does in the morning. He stretched and wiped the drool on his cheek with the back of his sleeve.

"I said 'morning'" Rude repeated, helping gently ease Reno onto his back. He was obviously still sore. Rude still wrapped an arm protectively around his waist, leaning in to take advantage of his open mouth with a kiss. Reno made a slightly surprised, but morely a pleased moan as he put his own arms around Rude. Their kiss evolved into slow, wonderful open-mouthed pleasure, as their tongues moved back and forth between each other's lips, before Reno finally pulled away.

"Jeez Rude. Seems to me like you're looking for some afternoon delight, yo." Reno smiled up at him, already slightly aroused. It had been over a week since he and Rude had relations, and Reno very much wanted to. Anything more than three days was just too long to wait. This was the longest they had gone without intercourse, except for when they first got together. From the day of their first kiss, they waited two weeks before getting into it. From then on, they tried to do it one time per day, unless Rude was too busy with work. Rude was the only one ever busy at work, being that he always wrote all of Reno's reports for him.

"Reno, its only 8:30, and no. We can't do it until your stitches fall out. Fall out, Reno. Don't pull them out. Cloud said we had to wait until you get better." Rude replied.

Reno frowned, sticking out his bottom lip momentarily. "Oh come on. What does Cloud know? I'm a big boy, I can handle it. I'm always the bitch, anyway. What's the worst that can happen? Come on, baby, pweeeeeeeeeze?"

Though he was usually good at winning all of their arguments, Rude stood firm on this one. As much as he wanted to plow Reno clear into next week, Cloud said it could lead to Reno developing serious hernias, since the gunshot wound and all of the torn muscle tissue around it was dangerously close to his intestines. He was able to take off the butterfly band-aids and the stitches were deteriorating, but they weren't gone, and the wound was still scabby. As safe, and as pleasant as it would probably be, Rude was not a risk taker, especially not when it came to the health of someone he cared about.

"Nope. Not gonna happen until you're better. I really want to, just as much as you, but we can hold out another week together, right?"

"Um…uh…I love you." Reno said hopefully. Telling Rude those three simple words, words that he truly meant from the bottom of his heart, were usually enough to get him to give into anything Reno asked.

Rude smiled, aware of what he was trying to do. "I love you too, but the answer is still no. Come on, Reno. Be good, this is hard for me."

"Oh yeah. Well, _something _is hard for me too. Permit me to demonstrate." Reno said, smiling and slowly lifting the blankets, pointing downward with his free hand.

Rude looked in the opposite direction, toward the headboard of their bed. "Reno, please do not demonstrate." He tried not to laugh at Reno's shenanigans while saying this. He was just too much. Rude pulled the blanket back down, kissing Reno once more before saying:

"Go get in the shower, we need to get ready for work." Rude started to get up, helping Reno into a sitting position. "I'm gonna go start some coffee. Don't hog all the hot water, because I need to shower too."

They had gotten ready together, and were on the way out the door before Reno stopped short. "What is it?" Rude asked, pulling his jacket on, shuffling his house keys from hand to hand, before placing them into his pocket.

Reno pointed a finger toward his mouth. "Reno hungry." He said, before heading back to the kitchen. He came back with freshly opened chocolate bar in his mouth, zipping the front of his jacket.

"Candy? You're going to eat candy for breakfast? Every day you get more and more childish." Rude said with a chuckle.

"Oh yeah, if that's true, then you're a child molester." Reno joked, "And a candy bar is better than nothing. What do you have to say about that?"

"I never go without breakfast." Rude replied.

"What about today?"

"I had a couple of Eggos while you spent half the morning in the bathroom. Really, how could you waste that much time with your hair and have it still look like a mess?"

"Don't bust my chops, this looks cool." He responded as he locked the apartment door behind himself, as the two of them headed out to work.

"Rude, want to play some poker at my desk when we get to work?" Reno asked, being that he found a pack of playing cards in his pants pocket.

"I still have some reports to finish from the other night." He replied.

"God, it never takes me that long to write mine."

"That's because you never do yours! I always do them, you lazy, lazy man." Rude laughed. He loved when Reno pretended that he was good at his job. Sure, except for his clumsy accidents, he was pretty efficient at field work, but when it came to office work, he usually goofed around for most of the day. One time, Reno spent an entire day of work trying to catch a moth that had flown in from the window. He chased it around, climbed onto things, ripped the window blinds down, and used his chair as a skateboard while he threw all of his desk supplies at it. The day was over before the moth flew back out of the window and Reno took notice of the mess he had made.

"Well, its not my fault I suck at reports. I can barely read, Rude. I might be maybe at a 5th grade comprehension level, and that's being generous. I got freakin lost one time because I thought that a street sign said "Mallard" when it really said "Gossard". I was suddenly on the complete opposite side of town, yo."

"Yeah, what'd you do?" Rude asked, now concerned.

"I called you. Told you I just found a badass restaurant and that I was hungry. I talked you into meeting me, and you walked home with me. The whole time, you never even knew I was lost."

"Wow. Reno, you're as smart as you are sexy."

"Hey! Oh…wait, you meant that in a nice way."

They arrived at New Shinra twenty minutes later. The old one had been destroyed years ago. Now Rufus made a handsome living for himself and his employees by climbing back up to a seat of power almost as good as it had once been, but more of a secretive organization. Yes, they still distributed power to the city, but some of their more illegal actions were better kept under wraps now. Reno waited outside for a minute, since they were early and decided to have a cigarette. He put one to his lips and was just about to light up before Rude spoke up.

"Oh, Reno. You know I hate when you smoke. It makes you smell like ash." He complained.

"I do NOT smell like ass!" Reno snapped back.

"No, _ash_!" Rude corrected.

"All right." Reno sighed, removed his cigarette from his lips and tucked it behind his ear, where it was instantly ambushed and covered by a shock of wild red hair.

"You know, I spoil you." He replied.

Rude grinned. "I love you."

Once they actually got inside, Rude said he was going to go finish up one of the reports he didn't finish, before the meeting with Rufus started in 30 minutes. Reno walked through the hall, going for more coffee. _Goddamn I'm hungry again. Lunch is in like three hours and I don't want to wait that long._ He thought about possibly sneaking around the block for some noodles before the meeting started, as he got himself a Styrofoam cup of coffee. _Yeah, that would be sweet. I don't think I'd make it back in time though, then Rude would be mad. I might as well just try to bum some Saltines or something._

"Do you have enough stirring straws?" Came a familiar voice from the doorway. Reno jumped slightly, startled out of his thoughts. He registered what was just said to him and looked down to see that he had 6 stirring straws in his cup and was about to place in a seventh.

"Elena, you hateful bitch. How are things?" Reno asked with a smile, walking over to join her.

"Good to see you're feeling back to your old self again." Elena replied. They began walking together up the stairs, down the hall and toward Elena's office.

"You seem like you're in a real shitty mood, yo. No luck with Tseng yet?" Reno asked.

"No. I don't want to ruin our professional relationship by making a move. I've told you that a million times."

"I think you're just afraid of rejection." Reno could tell. Elena had been crazy about Tseng for as long as he had been working with Shinra, but he never even gave her the time of day.

"Come on. You think about things in a stupid fairy tale world. Like I'm just going to suddenly make Tseng notice me, and then we'll be just as happy as you and Rude."

"So, you admit that you do want to be with Tseng."

"Shut up, Reno."

"Well, its not as weird as you may think. Being happy and all, it's what normal people want at some point in their lives."

"What's it like? Being _happy _with Rude and having something go up your ass everyday?" Elena asked, not exactly trying to be mean.

"It used to hurt at first. Rude's hung like a water buffalo, because he's black or something." Reno said, scratching his head.

"You don't know either?" Elena replied, shocked.

"Of course not. Like I care. I think he's half Black and half Asian, but I'm not just going to come out and ask. That wouldn't be right of me to just be like, "Oh, by the way Rude, I been with you for two years, but-"

"But how do you _feel_ about him? Do you love Rude?" Elena looked serious. She never acted like it, but she was so insecure. She was so negative because she was miserable inside. Her fear was the only thing really holding her back from a good life.

"What kind of question is that? Of course I love him. Rude's the only thing I have ever loved in my life. He's the best thing that has ever happened to me. And it was because we had the guts to take a jump and be together. If he's too stupid to get it, just get him drunk and ask him how he feels about you. That way you won't be embarrassed. Hell, you want me to talk to him for you?"

"NO!" Elena yelled, getting a lot of glances from people in the hall.

"Jeez Elena, lower your voice. You don't want the whole world to know that YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH TSE-" Reno started to yell, laughing as Elena dove at him, placing a hand over his mouth.

"Shut up!" She yelled, dragging Reno into her office and kicked the door shut behind her.

"Reno, don't say anything to Tseng. If you promise to shut up about it, I'll talk to him about it."

"When?"

"God, I don't know. Next week?"

"Not good enough. Tseng! Tseng, I have something to tell you!" Reno called as he opened Elena's door, yelling out into the rest of the building.

Elena jerked him back into the room and slammed the door back closed.

"Okay, okay. Just be quiet and I'll talk to him about it today, after work. Now will you just drop it?"

"Yes." Reno said, a huge smirk on his face.

"Now, we need to get to that meeting before we get in trouble. Let's go."

-------------------------

"My sincerest apologies, Reno. Had I known that the KPS was such a threat, I would have taken extra measures to ensure your safety. This is not entirely my fault though. KPS was before my time. My father started having problems with them toward the end of his life. He left me little to no information regarding them. I had to spend most of the time you have been in captivity until now searching through our archives, trying to find every little bit and piece that had anything to do with them. My father kept most of his dealings with them secret. All I have even managed to find out about them is that they are an anti-Shinra group. They initially had their dilemma with us because of the genetic experiments we conducted in the past. My father struggled with them from time to time, and they used to be well put together. According to records, my father started feeling threatened by them, and that's one of the reasons he asked you to drop the plate down on the slums. Avalanche was the main reason, but he thought he could destroy KPS at the same time. In a way, he succeeded. The organization and professionalism of KPS died that day with Kesht, the leader of KPS."

"But, sir, that was one of the guys that were mentioned. They think that we have Kesht alive and held prisoner here at the Shinra HQ, yo." Reno replied excitedly.

"I can assure you, Kesht is most definitely dead. Our guys retrieved his corpse. We also were able to pick up ten others that had been killed, before the KPS came and we had to scatter. As I was saying, their organization died with him. Kesht's younger brother Koeft assumed the seat of power and took the remaining 50 or so members that survived to hide out. They have been operating under ground for the past couple years. They are no more than common thugs now, and supposedly, Koeft is a real psychopath."

"That's an understatement. That guy is wacked out of his gord. He may be hitting the roids too." Reno shuddered.

"Reno, we have unfortunate news. We found all of your stuff while Shinra was cleaning out the hospital, but amongst all of the dead, we didn't find Koeft. He's still alive." Rufus stated.

"WHAT?! Sir that's unbelievable!" Rude yelled, getting up from his seat and into Rufus's face. "All of that, and we didn't get him? That freak is still loose? That is just bullshit!" Rude cleared his throat and sat back down, looking rather embarrassed at the outburst he just had. "I'm sorry sir."

"While I can understand your feelings, there isn't much I can do about it for the time being. We are doing everything we can to apprehend this individual, but until then, you're Reno's protection, Rude. You and all of your friends, don't let him be left alone. Our people are hunting him. We have reason to believe a few of the other KPS members may have escaped and took off with him. As of now, they are not a threat without Koeft. If we catch Koeft, we can close the book on KPS."

_Jesus, now all of my friends have to babysit me? This sucks! Just because I can't keep myself from being kidnapped, they have to put all of their lives on hold to make sure that I'm safe? That's a kick right in the ass. I'm not a fucking baby. Could it possibly get any worse? Well…aside from getting kidnapped and tortured again. Maybe the next time I won't be so lucky, and my friends won't get there until after the sodomy happens. Ewww…why do I do this to myself?_

"Of course." Rude answered obediently.

"Reno, you are going to need to lay low for a while, until we catch Koeft." Rufus demanded.

"Lay low? Sir, do you know me?"

"Reno, be quiet." Rude grunted. "Yes, sir. I will keep him from going out by himself."

"Let me get this straight. I can't go down the street without someone holding my hand? God, you want someone to wipe my ass for me too?"

"It's only temporary until the remaining terrorists can be apprehended, take it easy." Tseng piped up.

"No, this is crap!" Reno snarked.

"Reno, you will do it or you're fired. You got it?" Rufus threatened.

"Pshh." Reno pouted, staring off into space.

"He's got it." Rude answered for him.

End of Chapter 4.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5:

"Man, people have been avoiding me like the fuckin' plague this morning." Reno yawned as he entered his home, closing the door behind him.

"Well that's no wonder. Have you even taken a look at yourself?" Rude asked from his place at the kitchen table. He was having a cup of coffee, with nothing at all to do today. He smiled at Reno's appearance. He had extreme bed-hair on top of his usually messy mane, not to mention his clothes were wet and his shoes were soggy, making a 'splish' sound with every step. One leg of his pants was rolled up to the knee, still tangled up from being in bed the night before, and the other leg was drenched in filthy gutter water. He had just barely thrown on a shirt before leaving the house, and the buttons were uneven. He had just a moment ago gotten out of bed and decided to take a two block trek to the store to buy himself some more cigarettes. He had been practically sleepwalking, out of it until he had his morning smoke, like most people were with coffee.

"What do you mean, yo?" Reno asked, kicking off his water-logged shoes and stepping over to the mirror hanging up in the hall.

"You look like you just escaped the loony bin. Your hair itself is looking pretty intimidating."

Reno shrugged. "Hey, I'm looking a little grungy, but it still looks good. Just because your hair blew off in the wind ages ago, the other old geezers feel like they can relate to you, yo."

"I am _not_ old! I shave my hair and you know it."

"Sure, whatever you have to say to yourself. Here's your paper. I hear the crossword is very tasteful. Maybe you can finish it in time for Matlock." Reno smiled cutely as he handed Rude the daily news.

"You're too much." Rude replied, starting to read.

Reno sat down across from him, feeling more awake now, but was not hungry. He hadn't wanted to eat much since the whole ordeal he went through about 10 days ago. He wanted attention right now, and Rude seemed to be more interested in a boring newspaper, than his gorgeous, dripping wet other half. Instead of audibly demanding recognition, he leaned over, giving Rude the very softest kiss on his cheek. Rude turned toward him, forgetting about the news, eyebrow raised with an affectionate grin now grazing his lips.

"Rude, I was thinking-"

"You were?"

"As I was saying, I was thinking we could try out that bar down by work tonight, yo. It might be fun."

"Rufus said you weren't supposed to go out. I wouldn't have even let you go to the store, but you snuck out while I was still sleeping."

"No, Rufus said I'm not supposed to go out _alone_, and you had better not tell him I did. Come on, staying home is so boring when we can't even do it. By the way, my last stitch fell out like five minutes ago. Let's go out and do something fun. I'm so sick of everyone else telling us what we can and can't do. You have to go with me, since I won't stay home. You might as well agree, if you don't want Rufus on your ass."

He was right. Rude was stuck going with him, no matter what. He could understand that Reno was getting tired of being cooped up and if he wasn't going to stay in, Rude would have to go with him.

"Okay, fine. What bar did you want to go to? 'The one by work' isn't a good enough description, since there are at least four of them."

"Well, duh. I want to try out the only one we haven't been into, man."

"What, you mean that one with all the neon signs outside of it? I forget what it's called… the… uh… Back…Lander? That one?"

"That's the one."

"Are you serious?"

"Uh, yeah. Why not? We have been together two fuckin years, and we haven't once gone somewhere where people don't give us dirty looks just for hugging each other. I just want to be able to have a good time with you out in the open. It took me being kidnapped and you fearing for my life before you would even kiss me in front of our friends."

"Whatever you want, Reno." Rude replied. "I didn't know it bothered you that bad. Every bar seems exactly the same. You go, get drunk and make a fool out of yourself, and I sit there bored."

"I do not. And you just don't know how to-" Reno was interrupted in his speech by a knock on the front door. He looked at Rude, silently asking him if he expected anyone to come over today. When the older Turk shrugged, Reno drug himself out of his seat and went down the hall to answer it.

"Cloud. What's going on, man?" Reno greeted, stepping away from the door letting his friend step inside. The blond man sauntered forward and planted himself down on the couch in the living room, looking miserable as usual.

"Tifa's mad at me, and everyone else is busy doing their own thing. I didn't want to be around her when she's acting like this, so I came here."

Rude entered the room, plopping in the recliner so that he could talk to his friend.

"Why's she mad at you?" Rude asked, concerned. "Reno, no! Go change your wet clothes before you sit on the furniture." Reno scoffed and headed into his room.

"She's just acting weird about me. She says I'm never there for her. What the hell does she want from me?" He asked, looking angrier by the moment.

"Well, I'm no expert, but she loves you Cloud."

"I know, and I love her too, but-"

"No, yo. I don't think you do know." Reno said, coming back out of the room, having quickly thrown on a pair of slacks, and was still in the process of buttoning his shirt. He sat himself down beside his saddened friend, looking over at him. "She _loves_ you. I mean, she thinks you are top shit."

"She said that?"

"She doesn't have to say it. If you have half a brain in your head, you can see it as plain as my super-cool hair. Tifa wants you to be the man in her life, in that romantic kind of way, not in the way that you're just a friend that's hardly ever even around. She wants a relationship, and all you're doing is sitting here complaining about all the shit she's doing wrong."

Cloud looked at Reno, slightly stunned. There was no reason why he should feel like that. He knew Reno always said what was on his mind, but he didn't need to say that.

"What Reno means to say is that maybe it isn't all her fault that she's angry. You have been shooting her down for the longest time. She knows you have feelings for her, and she wants you to make the move and be with her. You're her childhood sweet-heart, and she has been waiting for you a long time. Her patience is just wearing thin, because you really do not seem to appreciate her as much as you should."

"One of these days, you're gonna lose her, yo."

"What?" Cloud asked, defensively.

"She's a woman. She's getting sick of waiting, and if you don't do something, then somebody else will."

"Vincent." Cloud growled.

"No, not Vincent. But that's just because he forgot how to feel attraction forever ago. If I had a fine ass woman like Tifa wanting to get all up on me, and I wasn't in a committed relationship with the love of my life, I would have already took her from you by now. She's like the perfect woman: strong, smart, hard-working, kind, beautiful, the works. What do you even have to complain about? And if you ask me, which you didn't, but like I give a shit. I think you are being a total jackass neglecting her like that. You need to get over your shit before it's too late."

"Reno."

"No, Rude. Cloud needs to hear it like it really is. Look, no one else in this world will ever love you like that. That kind of love happens once in a lifetime. You're skipping a chance at being truly happy because you can't drop the past. What happened to Aerith was not your fault and you know it. It would have happened anyway. You did your fucking best. But that's it. You're too scared to jump in because of that."

"I really cared for her, Reno!"

"Yeah well guess what. She loved Zack! Not Cloud, ZACK! When it came to you she was just a friend until the Jenova cells gave you his memories. She only started loving you when you became just like Zack. And even if she really wanted to be with you, she's dead. You can't bring the dead back even if you want to. She never has or never will love you as much as someone who's right in front of you. And I know you love her too, that's why you're so damn jealous. You're just going to sit there pining, and when you decide to finally forgive yourself, you're going to be too late. She'll have already given her love away to someone who had the time for her, yo."

Both Rude and Cloud looked over at the younger man, shocked that he would say such a thing. He usually didn't care about these sorts of conversations. Even Rude was curious as to where this huge outburst came from.

"Cloud, I'm sorry. I'm being such a fucking jerk because I haven't…uh…been shown any tenderness, if you will, for way longer than I am comfortable with. I just hate seeing a woman sad like that. It's because of you that she feels like that. If you don't want her, stop stringing her along and say it to her face, so she can try to at least find someone who can make her happy."

"Like him?"

"Who?" Rude asked.

"Vincent."

"For the last time, Vincent doesn't-"

"I saw her with him."

Reno's mouth dropped open, and then suddenly went into a fit of giggles, trying to mask them by coughing repeatedly.

"It's not funny." Rude grunted.

"I was coughing! So, Cloud, what do you mean? Was she with him or _with_ him?" Reno accentuated the last part of this sentence by momentarily dry-humping one of the couch pillows. Rude gave his leg a gentle slap from the chair close by, which silently asked him to stop doing that.

"She had her arms around him. I think she was kissing him."

"You think?"

"I couldn't get a good look."

"Cloud, relax. There is no way he would kiss her, or even let her try it with him. Vincent doesn't see Tifa that way. She just spends a lot of time with him…when she can find him. She says he's a good listener. She feels like she can confide in him about her problems, because he isn't a big talker. He'll just stand there, and let her talk all day, and if she's sad, he'll offer her a safe place to cry. She doesn't want to be with him, and he doesn't want to be with her. They get along well, and she trusts him because he isn't the kind of guy to use her emotions in order to…um, get something from her." Rude said. It was true. He and Reno had seen Tifa talking to Vincent whenever Vincent was around. They were friends, nothing more.

"Really? That's it?" Cloud asked, hoping his friends weren't covering for a secret relationship he didn't know about.

"That's it, but if you don't hurry your ass up, Vincent might grow a heart again, yo." Reno said, smirking evilly. He wanted to rile Cloud. He wanted his friend to get some guts and shoot for happiness, maybe even drop the angst he always fogged the place up with.

"You're right." He replied.

"How do you even feel about her, buddy?" Rude asked.

"I…I love Tifa. I really do. I'm just-"

"Afraid." Rude finished for him.

"I don't want to let anything happen to her, like it did to...It's just like you said. My past is haunting me."

"Then don't let it, yo. Just give her a little bit of time to cool her jets and then go for it. Stop holding back."

"What should I do until she calms down?"

"You can come out with me and Rude tonight. We're going out to the bar. I'll make sure you have fun."

"I guess I could accompany you, but I don't want to drink."

"You don't have to. You can join Rude in making sure that I'm still able to walk outta there at the end of the night, how about it?"

"Yeah...okay." Cloud agreed.

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***Note: Sorry, everyone. This chapter is a little short, and nothing really superly important happened in it. I was just trying to establish a possible branch off between Cloud and Tifa, and I have been pretty busy with family stuff. I promise the next chapter will be better and longer. Hope y'all liked it anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6:

"Really? That's what you're gonna wear?" Reno asked as Cloud came out of the bathroom in the same clothes he usually wore. He looked more like he was ready to fight someone instead of what he was really doing, going out with his friends.

"Yeah, why not?" Cloud didn't usually go out socially, just to have fun, so he really didn't care how he looked most of the time.

"I really doubt you're gonna have a good time in that. Let me help, yo." The smaller Turk took a couple of steps toward his friend. Placing his hand quizzically on his chin he examined Cloud's outfit, making a 'hmmm' sound as he did. Reaching up, he gave the blond man's shoulder pad a tug.

"This needs to go." Reno said, more to himself than anything as he started to unbuckle the strap for it on the left side of Cloud's chest. It slid down his arm and Reno pulled it off by the sleeve, sitting it on the back of the couch.

"I think…this thing, around your waist, whatever it is, that too." He smiled as he reached for the belt that held it on, unfastened and sat it with the shoulder pad. He unstrapped all of the extra holsters at his back and tossed away the leather. The only small detail left was to unglove both hands and Cloud looked like a normal guy. Reno stepped back to admire his handiwork. Seeing his friend now in his black pants and ribbed sweater tank top brought a grin to his face. It truly was the first time he had ever seen Cloud when he wasn't covered in all of that mess he wore. It was good to see him like this, normal for a moment instead of being in his constant fight with himself.

"There. That wasn't so hard, was it?" Reno reached out, playfully giving Cloud a punch on the shoulder.

"I look okay?"

"Better than ever. Who'd have thought that under all that was a guy that could look this decent?" Reno motioned for Cloud to follow him to the kitchen, where Rude had been.

"Yo, Rude. How's he look?" Reno asked, followed by the older Turk turning around to have a look. Rude himself looked very much the same as usual. He had on a fresh pair of black slacks, his jacket and a pair of shades, but instead of a button-down shirt, he had on a white t-shirt that clung to his muscular build. A grin appeared for a moment and he nodded, approving of Cloud's less battle-worthy appearance.

"Now, are you going to go get some clothes on? We're all waiting for you." Rude asked his lover, who was still in the dry pajamas he had put on earlier that morning.

"Yeah, I just got done with my hair before I had to help out our friend here, cut me a bit of slack, yo." Reno replied, before walking out of the kitchen and heading back to his room to change. It never took him long to put on clothes, he did that in maybe a minute tops. His hair was the huge problem every morning. Before Rude and Cloud could barely get into a conversation, not that the two quieter men had much to talk about when Reno wasn't there, he was already back and ready to go. There the red-hared Turk stood wearing a pair of black jeans, a white tank top and a thin unzipped sky blue hoodie overtop, and his everyday black jacket, unzipped on top of that. The pants were tight around the butt and thighs, but bagged out a lot around the lower legs. Reno's shirt left very little of his skinny body to the imagination.

"Reno…zip one of those up, it's cold outside." Rude grunted, trying to sound much less bothered than he actually was. Shrugging, and only being nice to his love, Reno ablidged, zipping his sweater shirt up to a comfortable level. He wasn't surprised at all. Rude was a pretty jealous man, and he hated it when Reno went out in public dressed in anything that could be seen as provocative.

"We ready to go?" Cloud asked. Rude nodded and they headed out the front door.

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Upon entering the bar, the three of them realized that the BackLander wasn't only a bar, but a dance club as well. Reno smiled brightly as the pulsing techno music reached him, and the neon lights zoomed all over the dance floor. People were out having fun and dancing, as well as others that were just sitting at tables and at the front bar drinking and having interesting conversations.

"Rude, you wanna dance with me?" Reno asked. The BackLander was a gay bar, so he felt that it wouldn't be too much to ask of Rude. He wouldn't have to be embarrassed here and could happily and affectionately be with Reno here.

"No way, man. I don't dance." Rude replied as they headed over to find a place to sit. Once seated, Rude took no time getting a waiter over to get the three of them drinks. Reno was excited as could be, seeing all of the other couples happily kissing each other and feeling free. He had always wished Rude would treat him like that. Reno never cared about what people thought of him. He told everyone that cared to know that he was with Rude. He would have liked for them to at least hold hands in the park or something remotely close. Rude had a big phobia about showing affection in public, anything more than hugging Reno when they had to leave each other to do their own thing at work, Rude would not do unless nobody was looking. He took a big leap that day, when they kissed in front of their friends. Reno wanted it to be able to happen all of the time. Supposedly he was affectionate when he was with his ex-wife Teresa, and Reno had started wondering if it was just him. Maybe Rude was ashamed of him. The feeling got to him, and he had only finished half of his drink before he needed to get up and get away.

"Yo, I'm gonna go dance. You sure you don't want to come?" Reno asked again, this time very hopefully. Rude still declined so Reno walked down to the dance floor alone and slightly depressed. Rude never knew this, but Reno loved to dance.

"Hey Rude," Cloud said after a few minutes of idle talk, "Reno can really move, huh?" He pointed out toward the floor. Rude could definitely see that Cloud was right. Reno sure could dance. He was amazing, the way he could move himself, so flexible and with such grace. He also noticed that they way Reno was dancing attracted attention to him, and a lot of the other men seemed to love it. They all seemed to want to dance wit Reno, and Rude could see that he was smiling and having a good time. He was the perfect dancer, combining every style Rude had ever heard of and swaying himself perfectly to every pulse of the music. He felt so lucky, but so threatened at the same time to be with Reno, someone so unbelievably carefree and so in love with life. Before long, guys started buying him drinks. He finished off at least four before he came back up to Rude and Cloud, now munching on a cardboard platter of nachos.

"Where'd you get those?" Rude asked. Reno finished his mouthful before passing them to his lover.

"This guy named Reggie got them for me. I was freakin hungry and I don't want to get too drunk too fast, so I needed some food to slow down the alcohol." Reno smiled, leaning down to kiss Rude. Instead, Rude jolted back and caught the smaller Turk in a less pleasing hug. Reno sighed inwardly, disappointed more than angry.

"I came back to see if you want to go back down with me." Reno asked for the third and final time. Rude said something to the tune of just watching from where he sat. Now irritated, Reno turned to his friend who had hardly said anything all night.

"Cloud, come dance with me, yo." Reno extended a hand to pull his friend to his feet. "We'll be back, Rude." Reno said, dragging a hesitant Cloud out onto the floor with him. He could tell his friend was nervous so he took Cloud's hands and started to move him to the beat.

"How many drinks have you had, bud?" Reno asked. Cloud held up two fingers and Reno established that this was not enough. He gave Cloud the remainder of his ass-kicker bomb of a drink. It seemed like before very long, Cloud let go and danced with Reno, without being withdrawn and embarrassed. He was a good dancer, too. Not nearly as good as Reno, but for having a few drinks in him, he could hold his own. Reno got some of his new friends introduced to Cloud, and soon Cloud was getting as many free drinks as Reno was. The two of them together had so many people complimenting and flirting with them. Reno had to tell them each time that he was taken and Cloud was straight. It bummed the other single guys out, but they had fun anyway.

An hour had gone by before Cloud gripped Reno's sleeve, getting his attention.

"Reno. I suddenly feel awful." He said, breathing slower and more carefully.

"What's wrong?" He asked, stopping in concern for his friend.

"My stomach hurts. I feel sick."

"You're gonna puke, aren't ya?" Reno asked, pretty sure he already knew the answer. By this time, Cloud had a lot of drinks. He was drunk and the alcohol was too much for his system.

"I think so. Take me to the bathroom."

Reno nodded, placing a supporting hand on Cloud's back as he lead his friend to the facilities in the back. As soon as they were there, Cloud ran into a stall, dropped onto his knees and started to throw up. Reno had always felt bad when other people threw up. He felt a bit guilty, since he was the one that got his friend to drink so much. Reno stepped into the stall behind Cloud, running a soothing hand up and down his friend's back until the puking was done. He then flushed the toilet before helping the other man over to the mirror. He wet a handful of paper towels and helped Cloud wipe his face off.

"You guys taking off, now?" The man that Reno had been hanging out with a lot of the night, Reggie asked.

"Yeah. I think so. He's not feeling so hot, yo." Reno replied. "Can you walk out of here okay, Cloud?" Reno asked. Cloud nodded and he started to lead him back out to the bar.

"It was nice meeting you Reno, Cloud."

"You too, man. Have a good night."

Reno motioned for Rude to come down by the door, and he waited with Cloud until is boyfriend got there.

"What's going on?" Rude asked, gruff as usual.

"We need to take Cloud back home. He's throwing up." Reno replied. Rude agreed and followed the two out of the bar, slightly behind them, to keep an eye on the two. Rude liked being the back support of a group, making sure everything was okay from his angle. They headed out onto the street and started making the walk home. Rude nodded in agreement when Reno said that they should take Cloud back to their house for the night. He noted that Tifa would probably be madder if they left him with her in the state he was in. Reno continued to guide his intoxicated friend toward the safety of home when he felt the other man shiver.

"You cold?" he asked.

"No, I'm fine. It's just… the throwing up. I hate it." Cloud replied, not able to piece a lie together very well.

"Sure, "Reno said, removing his coat and helping Cloud put it on, "Don't take that off, or I'll kick your ass." He laughed as Cloud stumbled and he steadied him to zip the front of his coat.

"Easy." Rude said, now helping Reno with the cumbersome man as he placed a hand on him, steadying his staggering.

"Yeah, Rude. He's a real light-weight. I would have never guessed." Reno smiled toward the older Turk as they formed a crutch on either side of their friend until they got him into the house. Instantly, just as soon as they got through the door, Cloud had to throw up again, so Reno took him to the bathroom while Rude locked the door and took off his jacket. He was sweaty and needed a shower. He was going to have to kick Cloud out of their only bathroom. Walking in, he saw Reno giving his friend a swig of mouthwash to get the taste of vomit to go away.

"Is he going to be okay for a while?" Rude asked. When Reno nodded, he explained that he wanted to take a shower. Reno nodded his approval before helping Cloud into the spare bedroom, the room that used to be his before he and Rude became a couple. The two of them sat down on the bed together, and Reno once again asked his friend if he was going to be okay.

Cloud nodded. "Yeah, I feel a little better now."

The two of them talked and laughed for a short time before Cloud reached the emotional period of inebriation, and started to talk about Tifa.

"Reno, she doesn't understand. She knows I love her. But I have my own ghosts to do away with. I mean, I want to be with her, but I just…I don't want to start becoming happy, and then…I'm scared I'm going to lose her." Cloud said drunkenly. He was just a bit unsteady with his speech, but Reno knew what he meant.

"I know, man. But you can't live your life in fear. You'll never be happy that way. Plus…Tifa's a tough girl. She could kick my ass any day, and I'm pretty tough myself. You don't have to worry about her like Aerith." He looked at his friend, whose Mako-enhanced eyes began to sparkle and brim with tears. _Oh no, he's an emotional drunk. He's about to cry. Well, here we go. I better just play Dr. Reno and make it all better._

Cloud sniffed, trying to blink is tears away. Even drunk, he didn't want to cry in front of Reno. Sure, he would be the easiest person to cry in front of, but Cloud wanted to be strong. Reno touched Cloud's shoulder, in comfort, and pulled his friend forward.

"It's okay. Come here, man." Cloud wrapped his arms around Reno, burying his face into the blue sweat shirt he wore, and let it all go, suddenly crying his eyes out without any more control over what he was doing.

"She doesn't know what it's like to have someone die in her arms. Nobody does. She doesn't know what it feels like to be like me." Reno rubbed his hands over Cloud's back, just being there to comfort. He thought of correcting Cloud, and telling him that Tifa knew what it was like, because she lost her dad, but he thought better of it. Besides, he was starting to feel a little emotional himself. He knew from experience that what Cloud was talking about hurt worse than anything. His own memories made his eyes and throat burn as a couple of tears escaped his eyes. He blinked them away and just tried to talk to Cloud.

"It's gonna be okay. You're going to tell her all about how you feel tomorrow." His voice was cracked, and as much as he didn't want it to, it drew Cloud's attention.

"Reno, what's the matter?"

"Nothing, man. Just bad memories. I know how you feel. But you have the chance to have someone love you so much. She'll probably hold your hand and kiss you in public, man. That's gotta be pretty special."

"What do you mean?"

"Did you notice that my boyfriend didn't want anything to do with me pretty much all night? There were so many happy couples out. I wanted to take him to that bar because I thought he would be proud to be with me there. But you saw what happened when I tried to kiss him. Fuck, Cloud I feel like…well he acts like he doesn't love me. We have been together for two years and just two weeks ago was the first time he did anything more than hug me when people were around."

"Reno, at least you've got him. At least you had the guts to go for it. I'm always holding myself back from having a good life. I want to be happy, but something in the back of my mind doesn't want me to be. I love Tifa…God I love her so much, but I'm so stupid."

"You're not stupid man, you're just scared. I'll tell you whose stupid, me. I'm a fucking moron. I can't ever do shit right at work or at home. I used to wish that my mom could look down and see me, but now I don't wish that at all."

"Your mom…?" Cloud asked. He didn't know about Reno even having a mom. He was sure that he did, because everyone does at one point, but he knew nothing about her.

"Yeah…my fucking…mom. Goddamn I wish she was…proud of me. Cloud, she fucking…died in my arms…just like Aerith. I'm so sorry man."

The two crying drunks cried together for a few minutes, just embracing and letting out their pent up feelings. It felt good for Reno to vent, and he didn't cry for long at all. But Cloud, he had a lot of pain to work through. To his surprise, Reno liked being the one to help. He was glad that he was being trusted right now. Of course, Cloud probably was not going to remember this when the morning came. He would probably sleep clear into the afternoon of the next day, but it didn't stop Reno from liking the fact that Cloud was asking for help, and he was there to give it. Finally after a time, Cloud sat back up straight, sniffing and wiping his eyes on the sleeve of the jacket he was wearing.

"Reno, thanks for dealing with me. You're a good person."

Reno nodded, but before he could even comprehend it, a new pair of lips was against his, attacking him with sloppy, drunken kisses. Cloud was kissing him; his arms gripped Reno's biceps in his powerful grip, pulling him into the kiss. His lips were warm and his tongue darted out, forcing its way into Reno's mouth, tracking along the faint taste of mint and alcohol. Physically Reno reacted to the kiss before the shock of it was able to set in. His mouth unconsciously opened, granting Cloud access and his tongue pressed back against the invading one. A moan escaped his lips and he figured out what was happening right now. _Oh shit. He's really drunk. Cloud's kissing me. It feels fucking incredible, but this is wrong. This isn't Rude, and it's wrong. Wrong to cheat on Rude, and wrong to take advantage of Cloud right now. _

"Wait, Cloud." Reno said, pulling back from the kiss, only to have the other man go for his neck. "This isn't right," lifting his face up tenderly to meet his eyes, "You're drunk, and I'm taken. Rude is my boyfriend. I would never hurt him in a million years."

"You just said that he doesn't love you."

"No, yo. I said he doesn't act like he loves me. But that doesn't make cheating okay. I've never been one to approve of that. Rude and I will have to work through our problems. And what about Tifa?"

For a moment, Cloud straightened, remembering Tifa. "I'm sorry I did that." He told Reno. He was so confused right now, drunk and confused. It had felt so good to kiss Reno like that. Because of being intoxicated, he had confidence enough to do things now that he had never done before. Yes, this was his first kiss. He always thought of Tifa, and never betrayed his thoughts of her when he went off to join SOLDIER. Nothing romantic had happened between himself and Aerith, as much as he felt that he loved her at the time. At this moment, butterflies were flitting in his stomach and he was trembling with excitement. This was new and beautiful, and he lacked the logic to understand that it was wrong right now. He didn't care. He needed more. Cloud grabbed a hold of his friend again, kissing him harder and more fiercely than before.

Rude had been walking by that room, when he noticed the odd closeness between Cloud and Reno. He stopped to peer into the door, which was only cracked open ajar. To his surprise, Cloud had his mouth against Reno's. They were kissing each other. Something inside of Rude ached, and he felt like he was dying for a split second. Before losing control of himself, he thought that he had to make sure. He watched a moment longer, and noticed Reno had his hand's against Cloud's chest, gently trying to push the forceful grip off of him. _Reno doesn't want him. He's pushing him away. Wait, then why are they still kissing? He's not trying very hard to push Cloud off of him. Cloud's drunk; I know that Reno can overpower a drunk person. He's fought a lot of them at work. What the Hell is going on? That's it, I can't take anymore._

Reno finally pushed Cloud back, disconnecting their kiss. The two of them were breathing heavily, lips slightly swollen. Of course Reno could have shoved Cloud away faster, but in no way did he want to hurt his friend. He just wanted him to stop. Before he could gather his thoughts though, the door flew open and in came an angry Rude.

"Cloud! Get away from my boyfriend you motherf-" he came at the drunken blond, fist drawn and ready to swing before Reno leapt to his feet, positioning himself between his lover and Cloud, hands now clinging onto the front of Rude's t-shirt.

"Rude, don't, yo!" He yelled, "Baby, let's go out to the living room and talk this shit over."

"No, I'm going to fu-"

"He's drunk! He's not thinking clearly, and he's lonely. Come on, leave him alone. Please don't hurt him, Rude." Reno clutched onto his lover's powerful forearm, fist still flexed. Relief swept over him as Rude's fist dropped. He wasn't going to hit Cloud, not right now anyway. He turned and walked out into the hall, waiting for Reno, who turned to his terrified and drunk friend and told him to lie down and get some rest, and that everything would be okay in the morning. The red-head then followed his love out to the other side of the house.

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"Now how about you tell me what that was."

"I told you, Rude. He kissed me. He's drunk, man. I didn't see it coming and I told him to stop, but he didn't."

"So he was taking advantage of you? For that I should go in there right now and kill his ass dead!"

"No! Rude, Cloud is missing Tifa. We should have just taken him to her tonight. He wouldn't have kissed me then. It just happened. We were just talking, and he got confused about what I was saying."

"What were you saying?"

"That I was sad because of the way you were treating me. Cloud took it the wrong way. He just wanted to thank me for being there for him, but he did it in the wrongest way possible."

"How I've been treating you? I haven't done anything to you all day. How do you think it feels watching a bunch of other guys rubbing up against you, and seeing Cloud put his hands all over you all night?"

"What?! I was dancing, Rude. That's what you do. You have to touch to dance with someone, you old goat! Maybe that should tell you something. My friends touch me in public more than you do. You won't even kiss me publically at a gay bar, Rude! The only time you want to even do anything more than say you're my boyfriend is when we're at home and nobody's around. That fucking cuts deep, yo."

"So you go rub your ass on a bunch of other men?"

"I asked you to come and dance with me, but you wouldn't. I love you so much. I would do anything for you. I tell people all the time how happy I am to be with you. You have no idea how many times I have wanted to kiss you right in front of everyone at work. You don't know how many times I have seen couples cuddling out in the open and wished it was us."

Rude dropped his fit of anger for a moment. "Reno, why didn't you tell me that I've been neglecting you? That's why you let Cloud kiss you, isn't it? How did it feel?"

"No, I didn't let him. He snuck it on me. And no matter how it felt, it couldn't compare to your love. I just want you to be proud of me. I'm so sorry."

"I am proud of you. I really didn't know it mattered to you like this. You know I have a problem with affection in public."

"What about when you were with Teresa?"

"Reno, I was just a kid, then. That was different. Teresa was my first love."

"So, am I not good enough, yo?"

"You're better, 100%. That's why I want to protect you, from the shit people would try to do to you if they saw us being romantic in public together."

"You know I can protect myself."

"Baby, I love you. You know I do."

"Then show me once in a while. Who cares what people say to us? What about our friends? They're happy for us. You won't even put your hands on me in front of them, unless you can write it off as just friendly contact."

"You're saying you just want me to show you more-"

"Yes! Exactly. I just want to feel like you love me."

"Reno…I'm so sorry." _My neglect has made him feel unloved. All he wants is me. I've been the one making him sad like this. How can I even act like showing him that I love him is something I can't do? I've been an ass._

Rude stepped forward, taking his lover into his arms. Reno wrapped his own arms around Rude's neck, pulling him into a kiss. It started soft, loving and gentle. Rude's hands roamed over the love of his life. He hadn't made love to Reno in very close to two weeks, and all of these little moments that they had let their need for one another build on was taking a toll on his patience. He instantly wanted the younger man. This tender moment that they were now sharing, and his desire to make Reno know that he was loved didn't lessen the sudden wave of arousal that worked into Rude's body.

Reno pulled away for a moment. "I'm sorry about Cloud."

"I'm sorry for Cloud." Rude replied.

"Huh? Why do you say that?" Reno asked, confused.

"Because he will never have you."

Rude leaned back in, claiming the smaller Turk's mouth once again. He wrapped his arms as tight as he could around the more slender waist, holding his lover close and pressing the hardened crotch of his pajama pants against the younger man.

Reno pulled away a moment, looking down. He could see the outline of Rude's perfectly sculpted shaft pressed excitedly against the fabric of his clothes. Without a doubt he was desperate for Reno, already breathing heavily. Just the sight of it, just the way it rubbed against him caused Reno's jeans to constrict in response. Rude wanted him right now, even with Cloud in the other room. They usually didn't have sex when they had guests staying over for the night.

"I want that. Rude, I want you inside of me." Reno sighed, now very flushed and aroused.

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They had stood there in the openness of the living room, kissing and touching anywhere they could on one another, aroused and in need of each other, feeling as long as they could before it became too much. Rude had made short work of Reno's clothing, and had him standing before the space of the living room fully nude, wanting Rude more than ever.

"You're perfect." Rude sighed as Reno slowly dropped to the floor, kissing his way down Rude's shirted abs before stopping at the front of his pants, placing his thumbs under the waistband on both sides before pulling them to the floor, freeing Rude's trapped engorgement. At the sudden exposure to the air, Rude hissed sharply. Taking advantage of his surprise even more, Reno quickly slid his tongue up the entire length before taking the head into his mouth, sucking now with two years of still building skill. This drew a louder gasp from Rude.

"Ah! Yes, Reno." He moaned, already painfully hard. The suction just made it more solid by the minute. He could feel the smaller man's hand wrap gently around the base of his cock, steadying it and allowing Reno to take more into his mouth. He had gotten so good at this since they had first gotten together. This felt incredible. Reno felt the bigger man's hands wind into his hair, guiding his mouth over the huge erection he was receiving with such perfection. His hips started to move forward in time with his light thrusts, trying to get as much as he could into Reno's beautiful mouth without choking him. This was too good, and Rude felt close within only a few minutes. He felt one of the younger man's hands trace up the muscles of his leg, and gently cup one cheek of his smooth, firm ass, before dropping back down. Looking down and seeing Reno suddenly masturbating while doing this made it to where he wanted to be inside of him even more.

Pulling away, Rude lowered himself onto his knees in front of where Reno sat; wanting to watch what he was doing with himself. For some reason, Rude loved watching Reno touch his own body. The way his hands knew just what he wanted, milking pre-come from the tip of his length, the way he tried to hide his own moans, and maybe even the way that Rude watching him made him do it even more.

"I…want you." Reno panted, hand still stroking himself up and down. Barely able to stand it, Rude motioned for him to turn around, and he did, pressing his back against Rude's front. He craned his neck upward; meeting Rude's lips with passionate kissing as strong hands roamed over is bare, pale skin. He loved how Rude's hands felt on him, massaging their way down his body, touching the throbbing need between his legs, pumping him slowly. After moments of this, Rude broke their kiss, putting his hands on Reno's shoulders and gently pushing him forward, wanting him to bend over the coffee table. Reno did as he was directed. The coffee table was the perfect height for him when he was on his knees. He slowly rested the front of his body over it, muscles jumping now due to the coldness of the surface. He relaxed when he felt a warm hand travel down his scarred back. He could hear Rude sticking the fingers of his other hand into his mouth.

"Rude, I can't wait. Just have me. I need you so bad it hurts." Reno begged. He didn't think he could stand being prepped. He wanted Rude to force his way into him.

"Are you sure?" Rude asked. When Reno nodded, Rude used the saliva that he'd wet his fingers with to coat his pulsing cock. He then placed the head at Reno's entrance, and taking a firm hold on the femininely curved hips, he pushed into his beloved boyfriend's opening, slowly adding inch by inch until he was fully sheathed inside of Reno's warm body. He paused, waiting a moment until all of the red haired Turk's muscles relaxed before starting to pull out. He pulled out to where only an inch or so was left inside before trusting in hard.

"AH! Rude! Please…more. Do that again." Obliging his love, Rude thrust in again, wringing another cry from Reno's lips. He slid in and out, slow but making sure that he got Reno's attention, teasing his insides slightly, stroking over his sweet spot and ripping another cry before thrusting in hard again.

"God…harder Rude." Reno moaned, as Rude started to quicken his pace. He started to go rougher with Reno, hitting slightly harder against his prostate, sending shivers of pleasure through him. Soon Rude had used up most of his self control, and wasn't able to keep himself from slamming in and out of Reno, in and out of heaven. Before Rude knew it, he was pounding into the tightness Reno's body offered him, smashing their hips together and trying to get as much in as he could. He started striking the sweet spot as hard as he could, powered more and more by the screams that were coming from the man under him.

"Ah! Oh my God…Rude fuck me!" Reno was crying out, in full pleasure that he couldn't hold back. Rude was banging into him so hard it hurt, but it felt so good at the same time. His hip bones were actually being fully smashed into the wood of the table, and then yanked away so that Rude could bury his full length inside. The fullness was too much. This was uncontrollable. He hadn't been shown this kind of love in too long, and having it now was mind blowing. Reno was only vaguely aware that he was screaming. He was more focused on Rude. The sounds of Rude moaning were music to his ears.

"Reno. Tell me you're mine." Rude demanded, shoving in as hard as he could.

"Oh RUDE! I am so…fucking yours!" Reno screamed, now pushing his hips back into the oncoming thrusts, one hand holding on tight to the underside of the coffee table, and the other one masturbating his length as hard as he could.

"Say you love me!" Rude yelled at him, driving him crazy with moans.

"I LOVE YOU!" Reno shrieked as loud as he could. He needed this, and he was getting close.

"Reno…"

"Mmmm, yes baby?" Reno panted, barely able to form words now.

"I love you." Rude said, seriously and for the moment, full of love, before being taken by a blinding orgasm.

"Uh…Reno, I'm coming!" He screamed, once again thrusting as hard as he could into his love. Reno could feel the pulsing, and the stabbing into his prostate. All of this, Rude loving him and the excitement of the two of them making love like this, where they could get caught if Cloud broke out of a drunken sleep, was too much and Reno shortly followed Rude into orgasm. After that moment, together in blind pleasure, it was over. Rude leaned on top of his lover for a moment, before sitting up and pulling Reno over to him.

"You okay, baby?" He asked. Reno nodded.

"Rude."

"Yeah?"

"I came on the carpet, yo."

"It's okay. I'll clean it up later. Let's do this as many times as we can tonight."

"I like the sound of that."

"Let's go get in bed. I only need maybe 30 minutes or so."

End of Chapter 6.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7:

"Cloud? What the hell? It's 6:00, where have you been?" Tifa asked, letting her friend into the house.

Cloud stretched and yawned once inside. "I was out with Reno and Rude. I stayed there because I didn't want to come home drunk and wake you up. But I couldn't sleep because of Reno screaming."

"What's he mad about now?" Tifa asked, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

"He's not. It was more along the lines of 'uh…uh…Rude fuck me' and I thought at first there was an earthquake going on, and then when I figured it out. I just couldn't get back to sleep. So I'm tired and hung over."

"I see." Tifa said, smiling and placing a hand on Cloud's forehead. "You feel a little warm."

"I'm fine. I just need to relax a little."

"Well go sit down on the couch. I'll get you a blanket and make you some soup. Try to keep it down, because the kids are still sleeping. I need to get them up for school in an hour." Tifa lead Cloud to the couch in front of the tv, plopping him down and crossing the living room to get a blanket, which she draped over and wrapped around him. She then set off into the kitchen and Cloud could hear the clanging of pots and pans, and the water turning on in the sink.

_I can't believe I never noticed how good she is to me, taking care of me like this without me having to even ask her. She has been there for me for most of my entire life, to comfort and love me, and I feel like the biggest jerk in the world for ignoring her all of this time. She's perfect like a dream and she loves me more than anything. But I'm not going to let another day go by, letting her slip into sadness even deeper than she is. I've got to make her mine._

"Okay, I got the soup on. It will take a little while, though." Tifa said, good-natured as always sitting down beside her friend. "Do you need anything else?"

Cloud, resting his head back against the supportive cushions behind him turned his face ever so slowly, connecting his Mako-blue eyes with her dark ones. He smiled at her, just a very light, very faint smile, before bringing one hand up to brush a few strands of her long, dark hair out of her face, before gently cupping her cheek, rubbing his thumb over skin he had never known the softness of.

"Cloud?" Tifa questioned, her eyes widening at this newly shown affection from her best friend in the entire world. She had fallen in love with him the day she met him, so many years ago. They were both children then, but the feeling never slipped away. Every time she saw him, she loved him more, and up until now she was disappointed. But this, it was a pleasant shock. This touch, as simple as it was…it was the first sign of real affection he had ever shown for her. His hand felt so warm, and so good. If this was a dream, she didn't want it to end.

"Tif-" Cloud broke off as he leaned forward resting his forehead against hers for a moment before closing his eyes and connecting their lips, attempting a kiss for only the second time in his life.

As much as Tifa wanted to accept this, she broke the contact before it even began. Pulling back slightly, she looked at her friend, now more confused about him than she had ever been.

"Wait. What is this?" Tifa demanded, not rudely, but certainly concerned. She placed a hand against Cloud's chest, pushing him away, but not losing her gentleness. _What the hell is he doing? He has been ignoring my feelings for him since we were kids, and now he comes home hung over and tries this?_

Not knowing quite what to say, Cloud continued to lean against the couch, only roughly ten inches away from Tifa's beautiful face. He let his hand slide down to cover hers, the one she was using to push him away and she stilled. He moved said hand over to the other side of his chest, pressing Tifa's palm to the spot where his heart was about to burst out of him. He gave her hand a soft squeeze, and proceeded to rub his palm over the back of her hand, and down past her wrist. His eyes burned into hers, and he spoke.

"Tifa, I love you. I spent a long night laying awake and thinking about how I have treated you. I'm so sorry. It was just fear, because everything I touch, I lose. I know you love me and I feel like hell for not making you feel needed sooner. I know, I sound like I'm crazy, but you're everything to me. Everything and more. Please don't turn away from me."

"Why? Why now, all of a sudden?"

"Because. I can't take it anymore. I want to be with you, and I know I need to start acting like more of a man and tell you how I feel or I'm going to lose you forever. You're the woman of my dreams. You're so beautiful and I just want to make you happy. I know you're probably confused and even mad at me, but I need you."

"Are you sure you mean this? Are you sure you aren't going to regret saying it later? Because there is no turning back from here. You can't just tell me you love me today and walk out on me tomorrow. If we're going to be together, you need to be there for us. Cloud…are you sure that you aren't just doing this because you're afraid that I'll be with someone else when the day comes that you want to be with me?"

"Tifa, listen. That day is today. I'm serious. I want us to be a real family. I want to be there for you and Denzel and Marlene, and even more if you want. I'm saying this right now because I love you, and it is killing me inside. Just like it was for you. I want to end your pain, and I want to be with you. I'll do anything you ask."

Tifa looked into his eyes. He was telling the truth. After all of these years of waiting for him, he was here. Cloud loved her, and right now, he wanted to be with her. She wanted to be with him. This was going to happen. Her heart leapt with sudden joy, finally feeling loved like she had always wanted, and it was by the man she always wanted that love from. She smiled, and her eyes shone, brimming with tears. But she would not cry, this was a happy moment.

Cloud leaned in to kiss her again, and this time, she didn't stop him. She closed her eyes as his warm mouth connected with hers, and their arms instinctively went around each other, now holding as tight as comfort would allow. But the kiss remained slow, passionate, and new. Cloud was at least fairly sure Tifa had not done this either, because her returned kiss didn't feel like Reno's had the night before. This was soft, even scared. He pulled away for a second.

"I haven't done this before, either." He said to her, wanting to make his new love feel more comfortable. He wanted her to feel safe with him.

"You haven't?" She questioned, surprised.

"Well, I was drunk and I tried to kiss Reno last night."

A burst of laughter came from Tifa's lips before she placed a hand over her mouth. "What makes you think I haven't?"

"I just know it."

"Because I love you." Tifa added, before laying her head on Cloud's shoulder, her arms still embracing him. "I want to take this one step at a time." She said, sighing as his hands rubbed her back up and down. He nodded, but proceeded to place kisses down her neck and over her shoulder, moving the strap from her tank top as he did so.

"I love you, too. Just let me kiss you." Cloud whispered. He didn't intend to take things too far with Tifa that very day. He wanted to be like a normal couple inside. Nothing mattered right now as he tipped her face toward him, pressing his lips to hers again, deepening this more than their first kiss. She sighed softly into this, tightening her grip on him as Cloud tentatively slid his tongue out to graze it over her bottom lip. Tifa gasped and Cloud took this moment to invade her mouth, exploring only slightly, still very unsure of his skill. She slid her own tongue out to meet Cloud's and it felt electric. It was true she wanted more of Cloud, all she could get, but the feeling made her guilty. This was perfect, but she couldn't. Pulling away, she stood up.

"What now?" Cloud asked, trying to look more injured.

"Soup's probably ready."

-----------------------------------

Rude jerked out of his sleep that he only seemed to have slipped into a moment ago. Looking at the alarm clock, he saw it was 7:30 and he had actually only been asleep for three hours. He could have sworn he heard something. There is no way he woke up on his own. Listening, the sound came again. There was an urgent banging at his front door, and judging by the metallic sound of it, he knew just who it was.

Getting up and quickly finding some pants, he went down the hall and answered the door, seeing the expected ominous man standing before him.

"Vincent." He nodded a greeting, still very tired. He now had a slight headache from jolting out of bed so quickly.

"Rude. Tseng has sent me here to inform you that Koeft paid New Shinra a visit last night. They have taken President Rufus Shinra hostage."

"What?!" Suddenly Rude was wide awake. The KPS struck again and they took Rufus, the very reason that he and Reno even had jobs.

"Come in." Rude stepped away from the door, allowing Vincent access into the house. They went into the living room, as usual for guests and Vincent plopped down into one of the easy chairs, placing his feet up onto the coffee table, looking tired himself. Rude couldn't help but wonder if Vincent ever slept. He was a very mysterious man, and there were a lot of things that Rude had never been able to imagine him doing. He had never eaten or drank in front of him, nor cried. Very rarely he would grin or chuckle, but never a full-blown smile or laugh. He had been around Vincent for close to 24 hours at a time, and the demon of a man never even seemed like he had to go to the bathroom.

"How did this happen? I thought that the KPS was dead for the most part." Rude was genuinely perplexed. "I know Rufus is no super hero, but he's certainly strong enough to take out one man. Hell, Reno could have probably done it if he wasn't outnumbered and already banged up so bad."

"Do you actually know what Koeft looks like? Reno didn't stand a chance and neither does President Shinra. Koeft is bigger than Barrett, but not by far. He's also highly skilled, but he didn't act alone. Surveillance cameras caught him and two other armed men. They ambushed Rufus alone in his office. The individuals apparently used the roof vents to get in, and the back elevator to get out."

"Well, why are we sitting around for? We need to go figure out where they are keeping-"

"Relax. I'm already far ahead of you. They left a note that security found. It tells us exactly where to fi-"

His speech was interrupted by the sound of Reno talking his way down the hall, groggy and making his way to the living room as well.

"Damn. My ass still hurts, yo. From when you prison fucked me on top of the coff-" Reno stopped in mid sentence on his own, when he turned the corner and saw Vincent sitting there, staring at him. The much older man cleared his throat and proceeded to remove his feet from where they sat on the wooden table's surface, gracelessly placing them on the floor.

"Awkward." Vincent stated, slightly disturbed by the mental image that Reno inadvertently painted for him.

"Uh, hey Vincent. What brings you here so early, yo?"

"Reno, go get dressed. We have some work to do." Rude replied.

"Huh? What work? It's the weekend!" Reno replied, pouting.

"Rufus. He was abducted by Koeft and a couple others from the KPS last night. We have to go to the designated meeting place and try to…well we are going to get him back."

"Koeft? Who's all coming?"

"Me, you, Vincent, Tseng and Elena."

"Fuck, that isn't going to be enough. That's like walking into a death trap, man. You don't even know. Five of us, and we will already be outnumbered without a doubt. Not to mention Koeft is a huge motherfu-"

"Reno. We know the risk. But those were Koeft's terms. This is strictly Shinra business. No outside help. I still count because I was once a Turk. That's what they want, Turks."

"So we go in there to die? That's your big plan? Look, I have dealt with this guy and it almost killed me."

"Exactly. What do you suppose they are going to do to your boss if we don't make an attempt? Do you want Rufus to be dead next time you see him?"

"No, Vincent. I don't."

"Then go get dressed. Now."

End of Chapter 7.


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8:

"Where is he, President Shinra?" Koeft asked, standing uncomfortably close to a very calm and collected Rufus Shinra, who was sitting in a dusty chair in front of his abductor.

"If I've said it once, I have said it a thousand times. Your brother is dead. He was killed when the plate fell on the Slums. Besides, what use would Kesht have been to me alive?"

"Information." Koeft replied, "It's obvious to us that you and your leeches want the KPS destroyed. You could have tortured information out of Kesht, and found our members one at a time, maybe get them to leak the whereabouts of our hideouts."

"Please, spare me. Your so-called 'organization' died with Kesht. From then on you became predictable and lazy. It was only a matter of time before my people would find yours. And find you they did. You're over."

"We're prepared to fight!" Koeft shouted, causing Rufus to draw away from him, shaking the yell out of his head before looking back up.

"Fight? What do you intend to fight with. Shinra has already handed your ass to you in a trash bag twice. You now have, what, seven or eight men left of the KPS? Including you? If you still find yourself a threat, then you are even stupider than I thought. Your reign ends tonight."

"Then I will take you out with me."

"That's laughable. You think that killing me is going to stop Shinra from rebuilding? No, you're mistaken. Shinra will continue far longer than you will ever know, with or without me." Rufus wasn't afraid. There was very rarely a time that he was. He had been faced with danger most of his life, and instead of being afraid, he had the power to instill fear even in his captives. This moment was no different. Koeft could not stare into his deep blue eyes without feeling uneasy. He was desperate to break any eye contact that Rufus in sighted.

-------------------------------

"Damn, what is with these freaks liking dirty, old shithouses, yo?" Reno asked as he and his four other colleagues made their way through a filthy alleyway, on their way to the abandoned soup kitchen that had not been torn down yet. A newer, cleaner one had been made on the other side of New Midgar, and this one now only served as a home for rats and bacteria.

"Can't say I know. Maybe because it's inconspicuous. Supposedly back when they were at their most powerful, they had a huge building for their headquarters." Rude replied, scooting a moldy box aside with his foot.

"They want it because nobody cares about it. Common society doesn't have their eyes peeled on all or even any sides of a place like this. The KPS feels that it's a safe haven." Vincent stated. He knew what he was talking about. "It's not that they like staying in places like this, but they feel that they need to."

The four Turks and Vincent made their way through the seemingly endless twists and turns of the alley maze. They kept an eye open on their surroundings, uncomfortably plunging deeper down the grimy path, only concerned with their boss's safe return. It truly smelled awful here, but the stench was starting to fade away as the sun disappeared behind the clouds. They were only a couple blocks away from the back door entry of the facility.

"Yo, Rude. I wonder if this is going to mean a raise for us." Reno joked. He really didn't care either way, but he felt that he needed to say something to break the tension amongst them, even just a little. He hated situations like that, where everyone was worried and the air was so thick that it was hard to breathe. "Maybe not, yo." He cracked a grin and scratched at is scalp for a moment before someone spoke.

"Wow Reno. If that's what you care about, maybe you should let Rufus plow you too. Maybe then he'd pay you better, you ignorant ass." Elena snapped, in her usual terrible mood. Everyone stopped and stared at her for a moment. It was obvious to everyone else that Reno was only kidding, but she seemed hell-bent on keeping the situation as serious as possible. But Reno was smooth, and he could very honestly give a shit less what Elena thought. She was just a bitch. He put up with her at work because he had to, but this was not work. Technically it was, but at the moment, Rufus was not there for her to go running to.

"You know Elena; you'd be able to at least give people the impression that you might actually be intelligent if you kept your mouth closed more often. Isn't that how you get paid so well? Shutting your mouth and opening up your legs? Did you give up on Tseng here and let the R man take a stroll in your private quarters with a flesh pipe as the access key?" Reno smiled, now, raising his brow deviously. He could be a real jerk if he wanted to, which he never usually did. Elena just seemed to bring that side of him out every time she spoke.

"You're a real bastard, Reno." Tseng stated sharply. He liked standing up to Reno, because it made him feel like a man. He never said anything toward Rude, because he felt that Reno was weaker and easier to demean.

"You're a Nancy little mama's boy, Tseng." Reno replied, sticking a cigarette into his mouth and lighting it. He had started to feel a little tense. They did have work to do, and the thought of meeting up with Koeft again was unnerving. He took a long drag and let the smoke billow out, before blowing a smoke heart at Rude.

"Speaking of mothers, looking at you, I'd say yours didn't do so hot."

Reno stopped in his tracks, hand halfway to his mouth and slowly turned his gaze toward Tseng again, a vicious look coming into his eyes.

"Um…what the fuck did you just say to me, yo?" Reno asked, through gritted teeth, staring daggers at his co-worker.

"I said that your mom failed you." Tseng said again, his arms crossed coolly over his chest. For a moment he seemed to feel invincible.

"Show some fucking respect, my momma is dead." Reno grunted.

"Hmm, better off I think. Now she doesn't have to hang her head in shame."

"You motherfucker!" Reno yelled as he rushed toward Tseng, fist drawn back. He wanted to just kill this guy, and he was going to hit him as many times as he could before somebody pulled him off. Only a fraction of a second before Reno could let a punch fly, another fist connected hard against Tseng's cheek. The sound could have probably been heard from the street. Tseng's eyes widened for a moment, staring at Reno in utter confusion. He stumbled a couple of steps, trying to gain his footing before spinning fully and falling onto the dirty cement, unconscious. Reno looked down at him, before looking toward the direction the fist flew from. A smile crossed his face as he saw Rude giving his hand a shake before massaging the bare knuckles.

"Got you covered." He said, "Now let's leave the mothers out of this. God that hurt." Rude said, sticking the skinned knuckle of his index finger into his mouth.

"Very amusing." Vincent stated.

"You're such a badass, Rude. Remind me to give you a BJ at your desk in the morning." Reno smiled.

"TSENG!" Elena yelled, lowering herself onto the ground. "Rude, what the hell did you do?" She shook her unconscious partner's shoulder, but he was nowhere near waking up.

"If you're so worried about it, perhaps you should stay here with him. Let the rest of us handle this matter." Vincent said, walking right past her, still heading in the right direction, followed by both Reno and Rude. They continued on for a few minutes silently before Rude spoke again.

"Wait, Reno. A BJ at work?"

"Yeah, why not? You never complained before, yo."

"That's because you never did it at work."

"I haven't? Well, you've been missing out."

"Let's stay focused." Vincent noted, interrupting the conversation by clearing his throat. They were getting very close to the building and needed to watch for traps.

--------------------------------------------

"Keep it down, Clanks" Reno warned quietly as they broke into the back door and Vincent's gauntlet happened to graze loudly across the frame. Inside this place was dank and dark. There were no lights on, and the only light they could see came from the sun, which shone through the cracks in the boarded up windows. This specific store room was covered in dust. It was hard to breathe in here, without feeling the urge to cough or sneeze. Once in, Rude pointed their path down the hallway.

"Reno, what do you think the chances are of President Shinra being alive at this point?" Vincent asked, wanting to at least feel reassured that they weren't heading into this mess without a hope. As he walked, he brushed a cobweb out of the hall before passing through it.

"Pretty good, I think. Rufus is calm and I don't think he would bring violence onto himself. It took them three days to totally fuck my shit up. It's been less than a day for Rufus in here." Reno believed his own words. He had really brought a lot of his pain on himself, because he refused to be taken down. Rufus had a way of talking to people, and he didn't have to physically fight them. His superior intellect was very little match for anyone that was against him.

After walking down the path for only a few minutes, they were caught by surprise when a chunk of the wall on the right side of them seemed to blow itself up, leaving a huge hole in its wake. Both Reno and Vincent ducked just in time to miss being hit by debris from the stucco wall.

"Jeez, lucky. I almost got my face blown off, yo." Reno yelled as he and Vincent struggled to their feet, slipping around on some of the smaller rocks that hit the floor. Neither of them noticed as a live grenade flew through the hole in the wall, and out into the hall they were stumbling in. Vincent gained his footing and jumped back, clear of the hole, while Reno skidded and fell back down face first onto the ground.

"Reno, you jackass! Move it!" Rude yelled, jumping forward and stooping down on the ground in one fluid motion. Luckily Reno's foot kicked the explosive over toward his partner's grasp. Though completely by accident, it was rewarded when Rude grabbed the grenade and threw it back through the hole, yelling for the group to duck just in time. The powerful blast sent not only fire but huge chunks of foundation flying through the air at hazardous speeds. The heat was intense for a moment, but quickly subsided to only small fires scattered throughout the hall.

"Everyone all right?" Rude asked, slowly sitting up. Vincent grunted in response, rising to his feet while Reno, still on his stomach propped himself up on his elbows. He sat up rather slow, in total amazement.

"Rude, that was badass. Where's you learn that?" He smiled, running the habitual hand through his hair. His graze stopped when his fingers touched over something solid. Picking it out he took a look at what appeared to be the bloody stump of a human finger.

"Gah! Jesus Christ!" he screamed, throwing it and squirming backward into Vincent's legs. "That was a fucking _finger_ in my hair! Is there any more?!" He squeaked, dragging hands through his red locks searching for another intruder.

"Relax Reno. There's nothing else in there." Rude reassured.

"Relax? That's easy for you to say. You didn't just pull a severed limb out of your hair. Fucking Eww, it got on my skin and everything." Said a slowly calming Reno, pulling himself up to his feet. He stepped over to the hole in the wall and cautiously took a peek inside. It was a disaster in there, but he could make out body parts scattered amongst the debris.

"Looks like we took care of a couple of them, anyway." Rude stated, stepping over to stand beside Reno, feeling the need to view the destruction. It was disturbing, but certainly was not the worst thing he had ever seen. He felt no guilt at this. These people deserved what they got in Rude's mind.

"Let's go. President Shinra is waiting on us." Vincent uttered quietly, proceeding down the hall again. The two Turks followed a few steps behind him. If they hadn't been there at the time, they would have never guessed that Vincent had nearly gotten blown up. He continued his pace, looking normal as he could. He didn't care and he wasn't scared. It was eerie in a way, how he seemed to have no time for shock. Reno was still a little shaky from that moment, constantly wiping his hands on the leg of his slacks. He was growing more and more uneasy as the minutes ticked by. He wanted to just do this and get out, hopefully kill Koeft by catching him by surprise.

Vincent stopped short, holding up his hand to demand silence. He had heard something, a voice maybe coming from close by. Yes, there it was again. He stepped forward, listening as intently as he could before pinpointing the direction of the sound. Vincent had incredible hearing and was able to place the voices two doors ahead to the right. He stepped forward, pausing a moment before throwing the door open, gun already drawn and came upon the scene that he was looking for.

In the room stood Koeft, three other men, and Rufus Shinra, who was being guarded by yet another member of the KPS. This man was small but he had President Shinra restrained. He held no weapon, but Koeft had his trusty handgun, which he now had pointed at Vincent.

"Sir, you okay?" Reno asked, stepping into the room behind Vincent, followed closely by Rude.

"I'm fine. I must commend you for coming to my rescue so quickly. But Vincent, didn't I tell you not to allow Reno to come into this?"

"You did. But you know as well as I do that telling him that he couldn't come would be a waste of breath."

Reno looked at Rufus, then at Vincent, feeling betrayed. He was tired of being treated like a baby. Enough was enough.

"Take it easy, sir. I can handle it." Reno stated, "You're forgetting you hired me as a Turk. That means I'm here to protect you no matter what it takes." He got into a defensive stance, waiting for someone to make the first move.

"Reno? Oh, yes that is you. We meet again!" Koeft exclaimed, gun still pointed at Vincent but eyes now on the smallest of the men in the room. "Are you coming back for more? You gonna fucking fight me this time, or just scream your lungs out while I break you apart?"

Reno lunged forward, only to have Vincent grip his arm, pulling him to a halt.

"Let go!" Reno yelled.

"Wait. Reno, it seems this fight is not entirely fair." Vincent noted, raising and changing aim on his gun. Before anyone could say a word, Vincent's gun fired not one, not twice, but thrice. It was so quick that for a moment, nobody knew what he had even done, until three of Koeft's men fell to the floor simultaneously, dead.

"Vincent!" Rude cried out, but before he could finish his sentence, the situation quickly escalated to an out of control level. Reno rushed at Koeft with Vincent at his side, while Rude bartered with the man holding onto Rufus. The man let the President go so that he and Rude could fight. Fists and feet flew, before Koeft realized he still had a gun and started firing. Reno and Vincent darted around the room, trying to confuse his directions before they got the upper hand behind him. Koeft turned to shoot, only to have his gun kicked out of his hand. The weapon smashed against the floor and skidded into the wall before misfiring, ejecting a fire-hot bullet from the barrel, and sending it into the side of Reno's shoe.

This time, the sound of the gun firing froze everyone in the room, and they began looking around, trying to find the destination of the misfired bullet. After everyone seemed to be okay, the visual of blood in a puddle around Reno's foot made the realization and the rush of pain hit him like a ton of bricks. He gasped, looking down at the mess that was created before crying out.

"_**FUCK!**_" he slid down onto the floor, ripping his shoe of and screaming some more. "_AGAIN?!_ Goddamn it! This hurts just as bad the second time! You'd think it doesn't but it _does!_" He yelled through gritted teeth, clutching his foot, wrapped now in a blood-drenched sock.

"That's twice I haven't killed you. But I plan on making a remedy of that, right NOW!" Koeft yelled, charging at the already injured man. As if reading each other's minds, Rude and Vincent switched places, pairing Rude with Koeft, and Vincent with the last surviving member of the KPS. As Rude blocked the mountain of a man, Rufus took it upon himself to drag his subordinate and friend, a thrashing and swearing Reno, into the corner of the large room where he couldn't get hurt any further.

"Now, let's see how tough you are when _you're_ outnumbered." Rude growled, before lunging at the speed of light and landing a falcon punch in Koeft's solar plexus. The man doubled over for only a moment before fighting back, sending Rude smashing through the door with one powerful fist. He got back up and went after more, though, while Vincent tore into the other man. His fight was easy, and it was over in not a lot of time at all. He didn't even need to use his gun or his metal arm. This guy was easy to fight with only his feet and normal hand. But he didn't have time to toy around; Rude was not going to be able to hold up against Koeft by himself.

Leaping into the air, Vincent planted his foot into the side of the weaker man's face, adding enough force to where he knew he would hear a snap. When he did, the man fell, and Vincent landed as graceful as a cat beside him. Placing two fingers on the man's throat, he established that his opponent was dead. Rising swiftly, he hurried to Rude's aid, blocking one of the huge man's fists with his own. Without the slightest hesitation, he brought his foot hard against one of Koeft's open knees, pressing hard enough to break yet another bone.

Watching Koeft's eyes bulge as he crashed to the floor, Rude knew it was going to be easy from here on. He relaxed, watching the man thrash and scream for a moment before stooping down to pick up Reno's EMR. A smile crossed his face at that instant, as he stepped over to Koeft and slammed the rod down into the unbroken knee; rendering him immobile and filling the air with more of those precious screams Rude couldn't get enough of at the moment. He waited for Koeft to quiet down, waited until he lay on the floor, the only sound emitting from him was panting and soft whimpering before Rude spoke.

"My, my. It seems like the table has turned. How does it feel? Right now, tell me how it feels to be completely helpless."

He waited for a moment before flicking the switch of the EMR, letting it buzz in his hand for a moment before sticking it down into the side of Koeft's chest. A fresh burst of screams filled the room as the commander flailed upon the floor, partially in pain from being shocked, and partially in pain from thrashing broken limbs. After shocking for around five seconds, Rude pulled the rod back, freeing Koeft from the current.

"Answer me." He said calmly, dodging to the side as Koeft swiped at his leg with one of his huge arms. "Try that again, I dare you." Rude growled giving Koeft's arm a quick jolt. "This rod is nowhere near the wattage of the prods you use. There is no way it will ever burn you as thoroughly as you burned this guy over here. We use our EMRs to subdue, not to torture. But luckily, I think I can work past it. Now answer my question."

"F-fuck y-" Koeft started before being blasted with another shot at the electric rod. Rude held it there for a bit longer, his mind filled with mental images of this man and all of the pain that he inflicted upon Reno. Rude couldn't believe how brave his partner was, how he could even attempt to fight this man, despite being outsized and outnumbered. He was incredible, but he could have been killed. There was no chance of him coming out of that fight without being hurt. It wasn't a fight, it was abuse. Rude hated abuse.

"I had a feeling that you'd say that." Rude replied to him, pulling the rod away again, leaving Koeft panting and shaking. "I hate people like you…scum. You'd be a liar if you said you could call yourself a man. Where do you get off beating up on people so much smaller than you, people that have no chance? Makes you feel big and bad. But you're not so good when your people aren't around to back you up, are you?"

Rude dug the prod in again, not waiting for another word from Koeft. It didn't even matter what was said. He couldn't talk his way out of it. Rude was centered in a rush, and it was too perfect to drop. Watching the body below him convulse in pain was becoming an incredible high. He felt no guilt, and he didn't compare himself to Koeft. This was beyond him, it was karma. It was personal. He had no idea how long he had been electrocuting Koeft before he finally stopped again.

"No more!" Koeft screamed.

"No more? You've got to be kidding me; I have just barely got started."

Koeft panicked, feeling as if he were about to be shocked again. He had never had electricity course through him until this day. It was unbearable. He couldn't believe this was only a fraction of what he had done to the Turk he had tormented so cruelly. He had to escape; he had to get out of this. Turning over, he saw that he had fallen not too far from the gun he had been using. He scattered, reaching for it, closed his hand around the handle. It reassured him that he had a chance. He turned, aiming it at his attacker, only to hear a gunshot long before he pulled the trigger. The gun was again out of his hand. Looking at himself, he noticed his hand was no longer his hand, but a bloody stump. No fingers, no palm, a mess from the wrist up. He looked on in shock, with a glint of metal catching his eye. It was him, the dark, threatening looking man with the metal arm. He had used that cannon of a gun and blew Koeft's hand clean off, before he even was able to think of shooting.

Like a hawk, Rude was on him, forgetting for the moment that the EMR was electric at all. He used it as a club, hitting Koeft anywhere his arm could reach, over and over again, tearing the flesh and breaking the bones, before losing his own balance and falling to straddle Koeft's abdomen, still hitting as fast and as hard as he could. Arms went up to block his blows, but he smashed through them, breaking the limbs like those of a tree.

Reno watched this scene, fixated, unable to turn away. His eyes were wide and he trembled uncontrollably. This was it. This was his partner killing, and for the first time in his life, it had nothing to do with work. He was wild, and this was his payback. Rude couldn't stop, wouldn't stop now. He thrashed and beat like Reno had never seen. With each hit, blood splattered against his clothes, his perfectly tanned skin. It painted him, like a picture of something horrible and beautiful at the same time. It was perfection, and Reno could not deny that to himself, no matter what his brain tried to tell him. _He's doing this because he loves me. It's revenge. Rude can't let Koeft live after what he did to me. He's a fucking god, and he's mine. _This was sweeter than any concoction made, because it was nature, a territorial war waged between predator and prey. This was untamed murderous lust. It was pleasure and pain, so right and wrong.

"President Shinra, would you like me to put a stop to this?" Vincent asked, staring unaffected into the scene before him.

"No, this is Rude's fight. He can stop himself when he's finished. Let's not deprive him." Rufus replied coolly, one arm wrapped around his injured employee, bracing him as they looked on.

Rude had laid the rod into Koeft's body so many times that it was now slick and slippery with blood. Raising it into the air toward another blow, his hand lost grip of it and the EMR flew across the room, clanking into the wall before coming to a halt on the floor, too far away to reach for. The Turk looked down at his victim. A smile crossed the man's face when the beating suddenly stopped. He was too far gone to even know how bad he looked, and thought that he was going to be freed.

Instead, Rude grabbed a fist full of hair, pinning Koeft's head down before bringing a hard, bloody fist down against an already battered face and an already fractured skull. Each punch brought a grotesque squashing sound and the body under him began to spasm violently, yet he didn't stop. He brought his fist down again and again until he felt a few of the bones in his hand break against the cement floor. Looking down, he realized why. From the mandible bone up, there was scarcely a head to punch into anymore. His hand gripped only hair and he had fully bashed a man's skull in with his leather-clad fist. It was over. Koeft was dead, his remains lay still.

Rude paused for a moment, letting this feeling wash over him, the climatic finish.

End of Chapter 8.


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9:

Minutes later, Rude approached his boss, his lover and his off-beat friend. For a moment, no words were spoken. He knelt down before Reno, who quickly wrapped him into a tight hug, tired and weakened. He simply sat for a moment, holding Reno close, neither of them paying mind to the blood that now stained the both of them. Rude slowly pulled away and looked over into the eyes of his boss.

"Sir, I'm sorry. I lost control." Rude said to Rufus.

"You did what you felt you felt you had to do. There's no shame in that. It was either you or him. You know that Shinra techs will make this disappear. You are protected."

Rude nodded, as Rufus pulled out his cell phone, turned it on and made a call, stating that he needed a car to wait for them. This was a cover-up. He didn't want the public to see them looking like this.

"Gentleman, let's get out of here." Rufus said, pulling himself up to a standing position. "Rude, I would like you to go first. Vincent and I will help Reno." Instinctively, the two men, in sync, pulled the injured Turk up on his good foot, placing each of his arms over their shoulders, crutching him so that they could at the very least get to the car.

Rude lead the way, stepping over rubble in the destroyed hallway, and continued to keep a sharp eye on his surroundings, just in case. He stepped out into the darkening alley way, the sun was continuing to set behind buildings. Rude noticed that the last two Turks were waiting just a couple of yards away. Tseng had regained consciousness and was now on his feet. The two sets of eyes widened when they saw the state of Rude.

"Rude! Where's President Shinra? What on Earth did you do?" Elena squeaked. She took a step backward, just one, before composing herself and standing still. Demanding answers from Rude was not the wisest of ideas, being that he out-ranked her in seniority, but she could not stifle her curiosity. _Why is he bloody like that? Where the hell is Rufus? Where are the others? What happened?_

Without answering Elena, Rude turned and motioned for Rufus and Vincent to bring Reno out. At the sight of their boss, Elena and Tseng instantly ran to him, relieved to see that he appeared to be all right. Tseng quickly took Rufus's place, providing himself as a crutch for Reno. Letting his boss do it when he was able-bodied enough was not what he approved of as the head of the Turks. Rufus did not exert himself if Tseng was around. Freed, Rufus stretched, popping his shoulders and they all stood there for a moment, waiting for Rufus to get the call that the car had arrived.

"Tseng, may I ask what happened to your face?" Rufus asked, eyeing his employee and friend. From Tseng's brow bone to almost the middle of his cheek, he had broken into a deep purpling bruise. His left eye was nearly swollen shut.

"It's nothing, sir." Tseng replied. He knew that Rufus would press on, but he thought that he could hold his pride for a couple more moments. When Rufus Shinra asked something, he was really demanding it. Rufus never begged for a thing, as long as Tseng had known him. That was part of his power and mystique.

"Let me rephrase that. Tseng, tell me what happened to you, now." Rufus instructed. He waited patiently, watching Tseng begin to move his mouth, trying to form words to explain his present state. He looked around the small crowd nervously, not sure where to begin or what to say. He just wished Rufus would forget about it and leave him be, especially when his eye caught the glare of Rude's sunglasses. He just knew that Rude had a daring look in his eyes under them, as if telling him to go ahead and tell himself into another punch in the face.

"Sir, it was Rude." Elena said for him. Rufus turned his attention toward her only for a moment before she continued. "Reno was being a complete jerk to me and Tseng stepped in and told him to knock it off, and then the fags decided to gang up-" She was cut off.

"Fags, Elena? It seems to me that you have some form of resentment toward the chosen lifestyle of two of your co-workers. Do you have a problem with them that you would like to discuss?" Rufus said, pausing to give Elena a moment to reply.

"Don't you? They're freaks. What they're doing isn't…natural. It's disgusting." She replied, trying to very slowly form her words, nervous under the blue stare of her boss.

"I see." Rufus stated, slowly taking a few steps toward his dark-haired friend, stopping inches in front of him, open to the perfect view of all of his subordinates. "Tseng…" he stated, to get the man's attention. When dark eyes met his, Rufus placed a gentle palm against the unharmed side of his face, bringing his chin up slightly before pressing his mouth hard against Tseng's. The darker haired man's eyes flew open wide in shock, and he would have drawn back, had it not been for Rufus's free arm winding around his waist. He had no use of his hands, and even if he did, he would have never pushed his boss away. A Turk refusing Rufus Shinra was something that was just not done. Odd as it was, the shock of Rufus kissing him in front of everyone wore away quickly, and Tseng started to enjoy the warm feeling of his boss's soft lips, especially when the kiss softened. His eyelids suddenly closed, the tenseness in his body laxed, and he began responding to the kiss. Tseng was what he would call straight, but this felt good. He would do anything for Rufus, anything in the world, and he would do it with a smile. He was proud to have his first male on male kiss with Rufus. When the blond man pulled away, separating their mouths and the warm closeness that their clothed bodies radiated, Tseng audibly made a loud groan of protest. His cheeks instantly burned with his embarrassment.

"Very good, Tseng." Rufus whispered, with a smirk crossing his lips as he reached up and softly tapped the underside of Reno's chin up, closing his once gaped open mouth. That done, he stepped away and turned to face Elena who looked as if her eyes were very near bursting out of their sockets.

"They're not freaks. I've seen freaks. Now, needless to say if you value your job, I had better never hear that from you again, because your boss enjoys a man's company just as much as a woman's. I'm one of those _freaks._" Rufus responded to her coldly, but didn't lose the smoothness of his voice. Tseng still stood, shocked and breathless staring at his boss. He had heard rumors about Rufus liking other men, but was never given any proof of it until that moment. He also had never been so out of breath with just one kiss. In his head a million thoughts whirred around, making it impossible to do anything but stare.

"Sir, with all due respect, _HOLY SHIT_ that was hot, yo!" Reno finally exclaimed, causing Rude to clap himself on the forehead in embarrassed drama.

"Oh really?" Rufus asked, trying not to look pleased with himself, even though he was, very much. Though Rufus Shinra liked to act as if nothing mattered to him, he liked being the center of attention. He had confidence on his own, but it really helped when someone boosted his ego.

"Yes really, I've got wood." Reno replied before even thinking about what he just said. This earned a very light blush to cross over Rufus's face as he tried to hide a smirk. Reno of course did not really have any so-called 'wood'.

"Reno! Don't tell President Shinra about your trouser shenanigans." Rude grumbled, trying to remain stern instead of laughing at his boyfriend's silliness. Leave it to Reno to say something like that. Rude knew that at least half of the people standing in this alleyway thought the same thing, but Reno was perhaps the only man in the world that would actually voice something like that to his boss. Growing up in the Slums, he had no idea what social grace was. That was part of his charm. That may have even been one of the reasons why Rufus held him in such high regard. Reno was entertainment; just watching him do his everyday things could make anybody laugh. He was such an awkward man.

"Why not? We're all amongst men. Right, Elena?" Reno asked, raising his eyebrows sinfully. She scowled at him, but there was something deeper, she looked put out. _Maybe she's just pissed off that Rufus just made a move on the guy she wanted, yo. Maybe she should have made that move faster. It's her own damn fault and I am not going to feel sorry for the bitch. She can run home and cry about it for a while, and get over it in the same shoes. Tseng looked like he liked that, though. I don't know what the hell is up._

Rufus's phone rang, and when he flipped it open, apparently he had a text saying that the car was ready and waiting for them.

"Well, this has been illuminating. But we are finished here. Job well done, now let's go get that foot checked out and you can all go home."

-----------------------------------------

END!

***Note: Thanks to all of my readers!! I will continue on both the new relationships of TifaxCloud and RufusxTseng. For the record to anyone left concerned, Reno's foot is fine, it just broke a few bones, heals up nicely, and the KPS is never seen again. The cover-up goes over perfectly, and Elena does not go home and kill herself, or get fired from the Turks. There we have it.


End file.
